Chester Storyhouse chief executive to step down after 17 years

Andrew Bentley has led the charity since 2005

The founding chief executive of Chester's Storyhouse is to step down after 17 years.

Andrew Bentley helped create the city's largest performing arts venue which attracts more than one million visitors each year.

He said it had been an "enormous privilege" to lead the charity but was "ready to make a change".

A spokesman for Storyhouse said it would begin the search for his successor imminently.

The £37m arts building, which houses a theatre, library, independent cinema, restaurant and rooftop bar, opened in 2007.

It followed a two-and-a-half-year project to transform the city's former Odeon cinema.

"Together with my previous artistic director, Alex Clifton and the team, we managed to build and create a true community space, a 'third space' outside home and work, and it is this I am most proud of," he said.

Storyhouse was completed following a two-and-a-half-year project

Storyhouse also runs a regional open-air theatre, Grosvenor Park Open-Air Theatre, which Mr Bentley created in 2010 with Mr Clifton.

Mr Bentley, who received a BEM in the Queen's 2020 Birthday Honours List for services to arts and libraries, added: "My children have grown up in and around Storyhouse and it will continue to hold a very special place in myself and my family's hearts."

David Watson, chairman of the board of trustees, thanked Mr Bentley "for his outstanding contribution, and for leading the organisation with such energy, passion and resilience".

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