00:00How can a 126 year old building be fit for use in 2026 or even 2028 when Chatham's Brook Theatre
00:10is set to reopen after it will have been shut for five years? The grade two listed building
00:16was initially meant to undergo a makeover that would see it reopen in 2027 but structural
00:21problems were discovered that put a spanner in the works. Around Christmas last year we discovered
00:28some really serious structural issues with the building and it started to make sense of some of
00:34the other structural things that we'd found and our team here at Sindan have worked through the
00:39first few months of this year working at how we make sure this building is solid and stable for
00:45the next hundred years. Issues such as persistent damp in the basement and crumbling walls are on
00:50the way to being patched up. As well as two new accessibility lifts that for the first time
00:56will mean that wheelchair users can access all of the building. We thought we were coming in
01:01to do a straightforward refurbishment obviously it's had a massive impact on the project but we
01:06had to make the building safe and the degree of the problems we had considerable concerns with
01:14is this going to be the correct solution so there's been an awful lot of detective work the historian has
01:20helped out with historical facts as to why something failed. It was initially Chatham's Town Hall
01:26before it was converted into a theatre in the late 1980s with its renovation costing 21.5 million
01:34pounds. Funds that have come from the government's levelling up scheme, Future High Street Funds and
01:39Medway Council. But one of the biggest challenges has been how to balance refurbishment with remembrance.
01:47Anyone that's been in the building especially people that have been into some of the dance studios
01:51they would have seen the original air vents and there's these tiny little fists that worked the
01:57original air vents every one of those has been removed every one of those will be refurbished
02:02and every one of those will be reinstated so that people will still have the opportunity to learn.
02:09It's a long way for theatre goers across the five towns to see their venue return and to see if
02:16the Newbrook
02:17theatre really will steal the show. Megan Shaw in Chatham
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