WORK to improve the Festival Hall in Petersfield is set to begin, and £567,000 has been set aside to complete phase one of the ambitious remodelling of the building.

The Festival Hall is the back half of the 1930s structure, and the Town Hall is the half which overlooks Heath Road.

The complex contains a theatre hall, the Rose Room with its functions bar and kitchen, meeting rooms, toilets, the council offices and offices let to private tenants.

It is maintained and run by Petersfield Town Council, which has set aside around £290,000 for the work.

This is being funded by some of the proceeds which came to the council after it sold a field between Barnfield Road and Penns Place to developers Kebbell Homes.

The other £277,000 will come from developers contributions, said town council spokesman Steve Field.

Tomorrow (Thursday) at their monthly meeting, councillors are set to sign off a £7,490 payment so a digital and laser survey of the building can be carried out and the project can start in earnest. The survey will produce highly detailed and accurate plans of the inside of the art deco building.

Mr Field added: “Once the payment is agreed, the survey will begin soon after.

“We haven’t got any comprehensive plans of the inside of the building.

“Once we have they will go to a firm of London architects who specialise in producing ideas and plans for buildings that include theatres, and they will produce a feasibility study.”

The study will cost around £17,500 and focus on demolishing the 40-year-old single storey kitchen and meeting room which runs along the east side of the hall.

They will be replaced by a two-storey extension, including a new kitchen.

The architects will also come up with the best way to move the separate theatre lighting and sound control pods to one control room in the second storey of the proposed extension at the back of the hall.

Mr Field said: “We have to be sure everything that is done now will complement future improvements.

“There will be a phase two at some point, and we don’t want to have to come back and change work that is done now. At the moment there isn’t a start date for the demolition and rebuild.”