A SCHEME to help restore Warminster’s Victorian Athenaeum Centre has been backed by members of the town council’s finance and audit committee.

They voted on Monday to give £10,000 towards plans to restore the Grade 2 listed centre in Warminster High Street.

Members recommended that the full council should also support the £400,000 scheme when it meets on Monday, March 22.

Cllr Tony Nicklin, chairman of the Warminster Athenaeum Centre Trust, asked for the cash for a first stage proposal to ask the National Lottery Commission for a community grant towards the project.

He told the committee the Trust wants to pay the fees of professionals to move forward with its plans to completely restore the centre and build a new extension.

Cllr Nicklin added: “The six completed phases I to VI have so far raised and spent around £700,000 on the centre.

“Phase VII consists of the complete refurbishment of the theatre’s technical facilities and the restoration of the auditorium seating and décor.

“Phase VIII involves the construction of an extension at the rear of the stage and auditorium, providing new gender segregated dressing rooms facilities on the first floor, with improved and accessible facilities on the ground floor.

"These will provide full wheelchair and ramp access, and personal care facilities,” he told the committee in a five-page report.

The funds will help to pay for the £50,000 worth of fees likely to be charged by architects, structural engineers, quantity surveyors and other professionals engaged to help further the scheme, Cllr Nicklin said.

These two phases are the last of eight phases planned in the year 2000 for the restoration and refurbishment of the Warminster Athenaeum.

The forward plan was made following the formation of the new Trust in 2000, which amalgamated the original 1850s Athenaeum and Bleeck Memorial Hall Trusts.

Planning permission and listed building consent was granted on May 27 last year and is valid for three years.

The council’s Community Infrastructure Levy Working Group has supported the proposed extension to the Athenaeum and the use of Community Infrastructure Levy funds to support the professional fees.

Built in Jacobean style in 1858, the Athenaeum is owned by a charitable trust.

The building was originally a literary institution with a large lecture room, a reading room, classrooms and a library.