Brewery Arts is a major crafts and arts centre in the middle of Cirencester in the Cotswolds, attracting around 150,000 visits a year. Annual turnover is a good £400,000 with 85% of income earned.

It is home to 18 craftworkers in a variety of disciplines such as wire weaving, glass blowing, ceramics or textiles. There are educational classes, workshops for children and adults and a gallery for exhibitions. A small theatre is a venue for talks, music and theatre performances. There is also a highly successful café and a first rate shop.

Brewery Arts is housed in a former brewery and its barrel store, forming a complex of linked buildings, adjoining a small square lined by a bookshop, cafés and shops. Although the location is excellent, the building is badly run down and inefficient and parts need essential structural repair. There is no obvious main entrance, for example, workshops are inadequate, the building is not easy to navigate for visitors and there is very limited access for wheelchairs.

After a feasibility study by Niall Phillips Architects of Bristol and an appraisal by Arts Council England assessors funding was granted to undertake a Stage ll Development Study which would take the architects’ designs to RIBA Stage D.

In May 2001 we were appointed to assist Brewery Arts in drawing up business and marketing plans, carrying out an access audit and providing design advice.

In view of the decline in Lottery funding what emerged was a reduced scheme, effectively phase one of a two-phase project. This phase would include essential structural and services works with specific additions and improvements including a covered inner courtyard, relocation of the shop to the ground floor, a coffee bar on the ground floor and overall improved accessibility, particularly for disabled people.

We carried out market research and an options analysis, a risk assessment and an analysis of needs during the construction period. Martin Price Associates wrote the business plan and Paul Scudamore of Burgess Partnership carried out an access audit.

In July 2003 Brewery Arts was awarded £106,361 by Arts Council England towards the development stage of the refurbishment. To secure the £1.4m grant earmarked from the Lottery Fund for the full two-phase project Brewery Arts will need to raise £800,000 in match funding. As at June 2004 £120,000 has been raised through fundraising activities.