THE Theatres Trust has made a cogent case for a £250 million investment in London’s West End theatres. Act Now, a detailed survey of 40 theatres undertaken by the trust, has found that 26 are late Victorian or Edwardian and another 12 date from the theatre boom of the late 1920s. No entirely new West End theatre has been built on a wholly commercial basis since the Prince of Wales in 1937.

The need for major improvements is in part prompted by the massive sums spent on subsidised theatres — almost £250 million on just four London venues, the Royal Albert Hall, the London Coliseum, Sadler’s Wells and the Royal National Theatre. This investment has set new standards for sight lines, seating, foyers and back-of-house facilities in theatres.

One reason why many commercial theatres are so desperately cramped is that a century ago just a quarter of the audience entered through the main entrance and foyers. Bars and lavatories were planned with this in mind. The back part of the stalls, beneath the overhang of the dress circle, constituted the “pit”, and contained some of the cheapest seats in the house. Audience members there sat crammed on benches and entered via stone steps from a door on a side street with a separate paybox.

The theatre historian John Earl says: “The money needed is far higher than is justified by commercial income. Virtually all the theatres need a thorough overhaul. In most cases, there is no prospect of expanding into neighbouring buildings, so extra space for foyers, bars and more ladies’ loos can only be won by complex remodelling, often at the expense of seats, which may reduce income.”

There are four main West End theatre owners. The Ambassador Theatre Group owns or runs eight playhouses and two mid-scale musical houses, the Piccadilly and the Phoenix. It also has extensive interests outside London. Clear Channel Entertainment, which includes what was originally Apollo Leisure, owns or runs three of the largest musical houses, the Lyceum, Dominion and Apollo Victoria. Delfont Mackintosh Theatres owns the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward and Strand theatres and has recently acquired long leases or the freehold of four other playhouses. Lord Lloyd-Webber’s Really Useful Theatres, which took over the former Stoll Moss Group theatres in 2000, owns or operates 13 venues, including the London Palladium, Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the smaller Palace and Cambridge theatres. The other ten West End theatres are owned and operated independently.

The Wyndham report in 1998 forcefully set out the full economic contribution made by theatreland. The report, which was accepted by the Government, showed that the theatres were generating ticket sales of £246 million a year, contributing to direct spending of £700 million and tax revenues of at least £200 million. Indeed, the VAT on ticket sales alone now amounts to £48 million a year, three times the £17 million a year that the Theatres Trust says is needed each year for refurbishment.

Labour and Conservative Governments in the past half-century have run sustained and highly successful grants programmes for fine historic buildings in serious need. This began 50 years ago when grants were introduced for historic country houses that had been allowed to decay while requisitioned during the Second World War. It continued with special grants for historic churches and then cathedrals, and more recently for historic industrial buildings.

The Spanish Government has run a comparable programme for historic theatres all over Spain, restoring numerous splendid auditoriums to their original gilded splendour and providing superb new backstage facilities. Peter Longman, director of the Theatres Trust, says: “West End theatres are spending on average £3 million a year on maintenance and a further £3 million on minor improvements, but in the most cases the money is not available to tackle the major works that are now needed.”

Mr Earl adds: “Every theatre needs to be tackled individually. You can’t increase comfort by, say, putting in cinema seats. In a theatre you need to sit up, not lean back, and theatre seats need to be specially designed to suit the sight lines of each individual auditorium.”

This is emphatically not a matter of commercial owners rushing out with their begging bowls. Sir Cameron Mackintosh is to spend an unprecedented £30 million on his theatres but others cannot do this because closure for repairs or improvements means loss of revenue. A successful and therefore long-running show can mean that highly desirable improvements to an auditorium may be postponed indefinitely.

With requirements for improved access for the disabled and ever more stringent health and safety requirements for both front and back of house, West End theatres are under increasing financial pressure, despite an impressive number of successful productions.

A quarter of a century ago government provided visionary safeguards to protect theatres from any change of use. This slowed an avalanche in which 85 per cent of the 1,100 theatres in Britain that stood in 1914 had been lost or irretrievably altered by 1980.

The Government rightly puts a great emphasis on sustainability. Act Now is an impressive example of forward thinking which deserves a positive, creative response from ministers.

Act Now: Modernising London’s West End Theatres is available for £2.50 from the Theatres Trust, 020-7836 8591 or www.theatrestrust.org.uk