New Plan for Tramway

A piece in The Herald today brings good-​ish news on the fate of Tramway 2, as the Scot­tish Ballet revise their plans for the space:

The revamped design would include a custom-​built facil­ity at the rear of the main build­ing for Scot­tish Ballet’s tech­ni­cal require­ments, leav­ing the old tram shed, Tramway 2, as a pub­licly acces­si­ble space for visual artists and other performances.

This is, of course, better than using the space for stor­ing props but still prob­lem­atic. First, it remains unclear who would run this newly-​proposed com­bined centre for ballet, visual art and per­for­mance. And, given their track record, we would need some pretty solid assur­ances that any space reserved for the visual arts would be safe from the vicis­si­tudes of Scot­tish Ballet policy. It would be a shame to cel­e­brate the sur­vival of Tramway 2, only to find it ear­marked for another pur­pose after a secret meet­ing in the shad­owy cor­ri­dors of the Scot­tish Ballet.

At best, then, this is a sign that the outcry against the orig­i­nal pro­pos­als has not been in vain, and that Scot­tish Ballet are becom­ing more open to find­ing a solu­tion that will sat­isfy the needs of the visual arts and ballet com­mu­ni­ties. It is not, how­ever, a sat­is­fac­tory solu­tion to the prob­lem, which might easily have been avoided — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — had Scot­tish Ballet been will­ing to dis­cuss their plans before sub­mit­ting them to fund­ing bodies and the rel­e­vant authorities.

Posted at 4pm on 17/11/03 by Jack Mottram to the art and culture category.
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