AFTER reading your article on Friday, September 11 about The Lights Theatre, I once again, felt impelled to write to protest against the way that you have taken what is a good news story about plans for a thriving and popular venue, and again attempted to imply that the theatre is under threat.

The Lights is a successful theatre and community hub, owned and managed by Test Valley Borough Council. It has a varied programme, the performances achieve well above average attendance rates and its future is not at risk.

Like most theatres, The Lights operates on a model which requires a subsidy.

The subsidy for The Lights is in line with budgetary expectations and has a less than one per cent variance at the end of the year. This is not the ‘huge deficit’ which you imply.

The new Business Plan, our fourth, supersedes the previous plan, which ran until April this year. It was developed in line with the council’s corporate calendar to chime with the timing of the council’s new Corporate Plan, which also runs from 2015-2019.

There is an exciting four years ahead for the theatre, which operates as a community facility and caters for as wide a cross section of the community as possible.

Some shows appeal to a niche audience and are not likely to attract a full theatre. This does not necessarily mean that they are running at a loss.

We are able to offer these shows alongside big name bookings, which play to full houses to provide as broad and inclusive a programme as possible. I note that the Andover Advertiser failed to make reference to our recent news release from August 28 about five top name shows which were sold out before the new season even began.

We are very lucky to have such an amazing theatre in Andover. It not only provides three seasons a year of top class comedy, music, theatre, dance and art, but plays host to a range of community events and local arts companies and classes including Andover Musical Theatre Company and Ruby Slippers Show School.

As a local paper I would expect you to champion local community enterprises in a positive and supportive fashion, rather than write stories that scurrilously attempt to undermine them.

Councillor Ian Carr Leader, Test Valley Borough Council