IN Brief:
- Morgan Sindall is set to sign a £25m contract for Andover’s new town centre theatre.
- The project will deliver a 400-seat auditorium, flexible performance space, dance studios, meeting rooms, and café/bar areas.
- The scheme is central to Test Valley Borough Council’s town centre masterplan and will improve links between the High Street and Town Mills Riverside Park.
Morgan Sindall Construction is set to sign a £25m contract to build Andover’s new town centre theatre, moving a flagship regeneration project toward pre-construction.
Test Valley Borough Council selected Morgan Sindall through a two-stage tender covering pre-construction services and main works. The contract is expected to be signed from 1 June, following a standstill period ending on 29 May.
The new venue will replace the former Poundstretcher unit on Andover High Street, which is being demolished under a separate contract. It will become the new home for The Lights theatre, currently based next to Andover Leisure Centre.
Designed by theatre specialist Burrell Foley Fischer, the three-storey building will include a 400-seat auditorium, a second flexible performance space, dance studios, meeting rooms, and café/bar areas. The façade design includes stone-arched elements inspired by St Mary’s Church and the Guildhall.
Morgan Sindall beat rival bids from Amiri Construction, Neilcott Construction, and Vinci Building. Pre-construction is expected to last 22 weeks, followed by a 77-week main works package.
The theatre is one of the cornerstone projects in the Andover town centre masterplan. Its role extends beyond replacing an existing venue, with the building intended to strengthen the route between the High Street and Town Mills Riverside Park while supporting town-centre footfall and evening economy activity.
Public cultural buildings remain a demanding class of construction work. They need architectural identity, public accessibility, acoustic performance, complex services, front-of-house circulation, back-of-house logistics, and robust materials capable of withstanding long-term public use. Theatre projects also bring specialist technical requirements around seating geometry, stage systems, lighting infrastructure, ventilation, loading access, and fire strategy.
The Andover project will therefore need careful pre-construction control. The former retail site introduces demolition, site preparation, and town-centre logistics before the main build can proceed. Construction will have to manage pedestrian routes, local businesses, deliveries, noise, and public expectations in a central location.
The wider market context is demanding. Councils continue to use regeneration projects to revive town centres, but public capital remains tightly controlled and inflation has reduced the room for optimism in early budgets. Projects of this scale increasingly have to prove a wider economic function, not simply deliver a public amenity.
Andover’s theatre design reflects that shift. Cultural buildings are being asked to operate as multi-use civic infrastructure, with flexible spaces, studios, meeting rooms, cafés, and community areas extending use beyond evening performances. That mixed-use model strengthens the business case, but it also adds complexity to design, M&E, circulation, safeguarding, and operational planning.
Morgan Sindall’s appointment gives the council a contractor with experience across public-sector and community buildings. The next 22 weeks will be used to refine design, cost, demolition interfaces, logistics, and procurement before the main works phase begins.
If the programme holds, Andover will gain a new cultural anchor and a clearer connection through a key part of the town centre. The construction challenge is to deliver civic quality within the cost and programme discipline now expected of public-sector regeneration schemes.
