The Show Goes On

20 Show Goes On The

By Nicola Gray

2020 was a catastrophic year for the hospitality and entertainment industry and 2021 hasn’t started in a positive way. When your business model centres around drawing crowds time and time again, what is the plan when that is snatched away from you? I caught up with Becky Davenport and David Jenkins from the Old Courts in Wigan to see how COVID has impacted the venue financially, what the team have been up to during lockdown and what is in store for the future.

“Back in March 2020 we made the difficult decision to close our doors due to the impending Coronavirus pandemic just prior to enforced lockdown, Managing Director, David tells me. “This decision was enormous as we fund over 80% of our community activity through revenue earned via the sale of event tickets, food and beverages and private hire of our spaces.”

Sadly, by closing the doors to the Old Courts this has meant a loss of income in the region of £3m for this financial year. This really was a devasting blow for the team, who have worked tirelessly to raise the profile of the Old Courts whilst inspiring the community and giving a home to a hot bed of local artistic talent. David added, “Fast forward a difficult, busy and emotional 7 months and with our full staff team in tow, we’re delighted to have received £1,254,856 in emergency funding to cover costs up to April 2021, whilst continuing to support artists and our community.” David continued, “This money will help to safeguard our staff, our buildings and the projects we are involved in, all of which play a vital role in how we benefit our community.” We genuinely feel that we’ve learned greatly from this forced process but whichever way we look at it, closing our income-generating operations has been nothing short of the hardest thing we have ever faced. We can’t thank the funders enough for this incredible lifeline at a time when we needed it most.”

In response to the national lockdown the Directors didn’t want to lose sight of their commitment to the arts, so with funding from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, they launched their brand-new online performance platform ‘The Old Courts Live’. Since May this has allowed the Old Courts to continue to support artists with paid work whilst offering much needed connection and entertainment to lockdown audiences, some of whom were isolated at home. Artistic Director, Jonny Davenport tells me, “Aside from a boost to the mental health of the audience and performers, we have paid over 400 freelance artists at a time when their work was virtually non-existent. To date, these online events have been viewed over 70,000 times.”

And the innovation didn’t stop there, 2020 also saw the team complete a self-published book of creative writing and imagery submitted by 109 local contributors, named The Language of Lockdown. As well as running the main arm of the organisation, The Old Courts teamed up with Wigan Council and Fur Clemt to offer their help to coordinate volunteers delivering meals across the borough.

Director Becky Davenport adds, “We also set up a phone line meaning that residents could contact us if they needed any help or even just needed a friendly chat. The response has been phenomenal and the feedback we have received from handling the phone calls is so heartwarming and proves what a necessary service this is, even without Covid isolation.

“We’ve had chats with people about theatre, music, family, holidays, war, politics and Wigan, you name it, we chatted about it. I remember when we were in strict lockdown and we had a gentleman call us up with concerns for his mother. He didn’t live local and the lady didn’t have family in the area at all so one of our volunteers, Dan, went round to check up on her. Luckily, she’d just forgotten to put her phone back on the charger, so the battery had run out. The lady’s son In addition to protecting what The Old Courts stands for and everything the team have worked hard to create over recent years, they are going into 2021 with renewed vigour and will be planning the next steps for their reopening. The team have given us a bit of insight as to what the next year holds in store for The Old Courts and their other projects.

Royal Court Theatre

Over the last couple of years, the team have been busy inside The Royal Court Theatre on King Street. They have carried out urgent repairs to the roof and have been busy stripping out the old night club remnants and paraphernalia whilst returning the historic building to the theatre it once was. Becky adds, “Aside from the schedule of works carried out, the focus has been around fundraising for The Royal Court Theatre to realise our ambitions for the site. It’s been a lot of work to say the least, but we’re delighted to report that we now have enough funds to complete the job so that The Royal Court Theatre was so relieved and the lady herself was so grateful that we’d taken the time to go and see if she was ok.”

Becky continued, “Thanks to the support of the National Lottery Community Fund and the Co-op Foundation we’ve been able to commit to running our services longer. Anyone who’d like to volunteer to help with phone calls or anyone who’d like to receive a phone call can ring

2021 The Old Court Updates

01942 912300.” can open once more, something we passionately feel that Wigan deserves. In addition to the existing building, we have plans in place for a contemporary, complimentary addition to the rear of the site in which we hope to house a café and Northern Soul museum.”

Wigan Pier

Due to Covid-19 work at Wigan Pier had slowed down as workers were forced to stay home. However, once they were able to safely restart work, activity was resumed with partners Step Places, Wigan Council and Canals Rivers Trust.

Progress on the external space was there for all to see with new roofing, repaired and replaced brickwork, new windows and new cladding. More recently with the installation of the board walks and glass balustrade along the canal, the iconic site has begun to take shape.

The vision involves transforming the renowned Wigan Pier into canal-side walkways, a food hall, events venue and cultural education spaces. The food hall will include spaces for retailers, a gin distillery and a micro-brewery with the adjacent former Orwell public house converted into an events venue suitable for exhibitions, festivals, conferences and private parties and weddings.

Becky added, “We are currently working with designers Dawnvale to finalise plans for the internal works ahead of work commencing. Considering functionality, ambience, heritage and now social distancing, we are designing a space which we hope will do justice to the reputation that Wigan Pier has.”

The Old Courts

Becky tells me, “We are now entering into a research and planning stage which will involve our staff team working with local artists, stakeholders, the voluntary sector and the community to establish what is needed and how we can work together going forward to emerge from 2020 stronger than before.

Once we have completed the planning and research, we require to safely re-open, we will run a series of small test events in the first quarter of 2021 and we intend to be as fully open as the world allows at the beginning of April 2021.

Collaborative Touring Network

In September, The Old Courts successfully won a bid for £799,000 from Arts Council England to run the 7th, 8th and 9th years of a national project called the Collaborative Touring Network. The CTN is a partnership between 8 towns and cities that have over the past 6 years toured amazing shows and performances into areas of historical low engagement. This has seen shows We always say that The Old Courts is YOUR Arts Centre and right now in a time of uncertainty we mean it more than ever. We want to give the people of Wigan what they want which is why we’re working closely with the community to ensure voices are heard and everyone’s ideas influence our strategy.” The team are well into the process of creating 14 high specification studio spaces for creative businesses to occupy as well as a recording studio which, once furnished, will be available for commercial hires and internal use. Becky adds, “Last but by no means least is The Grand Vault, our main music venue at The Old Courts. We have formed a small design team who are working on a quirky internal concept with some key local creative figures. The purpose of the space will remain the same, but it will be given a new and exciting lease of life ready

for re-opening. feature in swimming pools, boxing rings, car park roofs and many other unusual spaces. Becky says, “Never has there been such a need for the pioneering network and with the project underway, we hope that we can lead the way to restarting touring work at some point in 2021.”

Language of Lockdown

COVID-19 Community Help

If you would like to volunteer to help or if you or someone you know just wants to chat then please call 01942 912300 or go online at www.theoldcourts.com/help The Old Courts | Gerrard Winstanley House | Crawford Street | Wigan | WN1 1NA 01942 834747 info@theoldcourts.com www.theoldcourts.com

The Language of Lockdown was commissioned by The Old Court Arts Centre containing stories, drawings, sketches, paintings, photographs, poetry and creative writing based on the emotions, thoughts and experiences from the people of Wigan, Leigh, Greater Manchester and beyond during the Covid-19 lockdown period.

Jonny said, “We wanted something that would live on beyond these unprecedented times, something to look back on as a reminder of both how difficult things were in that moment and how, as a community, people managed to overcome and perhaps learn from our experiences. We want to provide hope to others demonstrating they were not alone in how we have been feeling, despite being in such an isolating period.”

The work captured the good, the bad, the ugly, the boredom, the feelings of children missing school, the desperate need for a haircut and a hug. The book is available to buy on Amazon for £15.99, all proceeds will be used to support the work of The Old Courts.

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Swing and a Miss?

When I pen these pieces at this time of year, I traditionally reflect on what has happened in the Wigan housing market over the past twelve months and try and give readers an idea on what to expect in the New Year.

There is an old saying that goes, ‘Predicting the future is easy - getting it right is the hard part’ and as we welcome in the start of another year, we’re greeted with an avalanche of Nostradamus-wannabes trying to predict how house prices will perform in 2021.

The interesting part comes when one looks back on past predictions to see who was on target and who missed the mark by a country mile. Here’s two property-related predictions that didn’t quite hit the mark.

For the first, roll the calendar back to when Covid-19 hit early in 2020 and, despite a buoyant housing market still riding the ‘Boris Bounce’, major financial economists and property market commenters were predicting a property crash. The more positive amongst them were predicting a 5% drop in house prices by the end of 2020, but the forecasts from most ‘experts’ ranged between a 10% to 15% drop.

And for the second, let’s wind back the calendar even further - all the way back to 23rd June 2016 – that’s right, the Brexit vote. It was the considered opinion of Her Majesty’s Treasury, headed up by Chancellor George Osborne, that national house prices would drop by 18% if the country voted to leave the EU. Multiple ‘property experts’ voiced similar concerns.

The table below illustrates how those predictions have played out in the past 4½ years.

House Type

Wigan Detached Wigan Semi Wigan Terraced / Town House Wigan Apartments House Value 2016

£250,100 £137,700 £97,200

£99,000 Predicted Value post-Brexit Result

£205,100 £112,900 £79,700 Average Value Today

£275,900 £156,100 £106,600

£81,200 £115,600 The table shows that Wigan homeowners who own detached homes would have seen an increase in their property’s value equivalent to £99.23 a week. This is calculated from the price they would have paid in the summer of 2016 and the price they would sell for today. On this basis, owners of semidetached homes would have seen an increase in value equivalent to £70.77 per week, owners of terraced homes/town houses of £36.15 per week and apartment owners of £63.85 per week.

So why has the Wigan property market not matched the property pundits twice in the last five years or so? For most of us, getting on the property ladder is about having somewhere to live rather than an investment, and any increase in value is a secondary benefit.

Whilst panicked property predictions by ‘experts’ looking for a quick headline won’t materially affect homeowners, what they do is to frighten away those young people who are about to step onto the housing ladder and that’s regrettable because getting on the property ladder is, for everyone who is on there for the long term, a great investment.

So, what of 2021? It’s true that the country will have high unemployment, yet at the same time, we have ultra-low interest rates and for the last 20 years, on average we have only built 150,000 households per year, but we need 300,000 homes per year to keep up with immigration, people living longer and changes in the way households are made up.

And what does my crystal ball say? Rightmove are predicting a rise of Uplift in Value in % Increase since 4% in house prices in Last 4.5 Years Brexit Vote 2021, but the Halifax £25,800 11.3% are predicting a drop £18,400 12.4% of 5%, so I’m going to £9,400 10.7% sit on the fence and say £16,600 15.8% it will be something in between!

Alan Batt is a member of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and has worked within the Wigan property market for over 30 years.