Princess Pavilion is set to reopen in the very near future after both it and Gyllyngdune Gardens were devolved from Cornwall Council to Falmouth Town Council.

Nub News got an exclusive look around the pavilion with Henrietta Boex, Art Gallery Director, Administrative Officer and Mayor's Secretary, discussing a date for a full reopening, plans for the site and what needs to be done to get it open

The transfer took place on Friday May 21st following the termination of the lease with the previous operators Greenwich Leisure Ltd.

The town council hopes to have the site open during the first week of this month for people to buy coffees, teas, and cakes, as revealed by Falmouth Mayor Steve Eva.

Henrietta kindly gave us a tour around the pavilion and outlined the town council's vision.

So obviously this will be totally different from how it was run before, what's the plan for the site?

We have had to ask people to pay for this place to a certain extent, we raised the preset to secure this at zero profit-making for a year.

Our staffing budget will be significantly lower so we have to start in little steps we have to make it start working and make a little bit of money and gradually bulk on bits as we go along.

This will be about the community working in partnership together to make a success of it. By the community for the community.

The work taking place on the pavilion, is about structural changes or just cleaning up?

At the moment it is about stopping water coming in from the roof and tidying the place up.

There is really quite a mission before we can open the theatre to the public, I think we are looking at September for bigger shows.

Assuming we get through this next period without another spike then I imagine from next spring this place will be full of activity.

This will be the main generator (standing in the theatre), the money generated from full gigs, along with beer sales, can be ploughed back in and subside costs for other community groups who can't otherwise afford to use the space.

We are going to start cautiously serving teas and cakes and as we start to make income, we can start to change and have a sustainable operating model.

I think we are going to make an experiment of this over the next few months and see how it goes, I hope we will keep on top of everything and work in partnership with lots of community groups.

Just some of the exciting plans in the pipeline...

I'm hoping that the food here is going to be simple, affordable, local, and fresh. It would be really nice to support local businesses and residents, the bar could have local microbreweries on there.

We could have pop-up food businesses here, or the brilliant thing about this place is we can scale it right down for just warm soup in the winter. For the summer we can do cream teas, with deck chairs outside and bands playing for Sunday lunches.

There are lots of ideas floating around, I have run the art gallery for the last 8 years and we have a really strong community program there and I see no reason why we can't do that here.

How is the town council feeling about this?

We are absolutely over the moon, the gardens were originally given to the council, we were originally trying to get hold of this site back in 2017, so really it has come back full circle.

I know that a lot of councillors are really pleased that this has come back to the town because they feel it originally belonged to the town anyway.

I have over 80 enquiries already to use the pavilion which is really exciting, there range from 70th birthday parties, christenings, bands, and theatre productions.

I have an ambitious expectation for the pavilion but we have to manage expectations, I think the way to make this a success is to go slowly, listen to people and take on suggestions.

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