A FUNDRAISING campaign has been launched by the Wyeside Arts Centre to replace equipment lost when Storm Dennis flooded its theatre.
The Builth Wells centre's Market Theatre hasn't previously been effected by the rising water levels of the neighbouring river, The Wye, but Storm Dennis was proven to be powerful enough to fight past the flood defences.
Finance officer, Robert Warlow, said: “Wyeside’s Market theatre was designed with flooding in mind, and includes a number of previously very effective flood defences, including drains, water pits and pumps. In the past this has proven very capable of keeping the theatre operational with just the minimum of delays when flooding occurred. Unfortunately Dennis proved to be a very different kind of creature, overwhelming all these defences and flooding the main theatre to a depth of a couple of feet”.
The damage to the interior of the theatre has included expensive freestanding cinema and live speakers as well as other electrical items, which raises big concerns as Wyeside will struggle to hold any events without this equipment.
“We are also unable to use our lift at the moment until we can manage to get an engineer to come out and check its machinery. We will re-open the Market Theatre as soon as it is humanly possible, and we are immensely grateful to all the messages of support we have been receiving and to the people who have been making donations to our Go Fund Me page” said Mr Warlow.
The Go Fund Me page has a target of £7,000 and currently stands at just under £900, only one day into the fundraising campaign, and is raising money to help repair the flood damage.
Wyeside Arts Centre has urged people to check their website before travelling as events have been rescheduled, despite the Castle Cinema still being open for business.The fundraising page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/wyeside-flooding-fund