THE Farnham Theatre Association is enlisting the help of the BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours in its latest gambit to restore the Redgrave as a theatre. An obscure legal remedy which the programme has brought to prominence is being invoked in the hope that Waverley Council will be called to account for why it has left the theatre derelict and empty for nine years. The PROD (Public Request to Order Disposal) dates back to legislation drawn up in 1980 to prevent public bodies landbanking empty properties. You and Yours, which has charted the use of the PROD to shame local authorities over empty homes, is to meet the theatre campaigners with a view to following up their progress. Theatre association chairman Anne Cooper said the necessary form has been sent requesting the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Ruth Kelly, to investigate the case. If Ms Kelly is not happy with Waverley's explanation, she could order the council to sell the building on the open market. The theatre association doesn't expect this to be the outcome, seeing the PROD as merely another means to highlight what it sees as Waverley's unreasonable behaviour over the theatre. Anne Cooper pointed out that it was a campaign that also could be used over the cottages at Brightwells, left vacant and decaying after the occupants were served notice to quit several years ago.
