A beloved Frome music venue will be able to expand if sufficient grant funding is secured.

The venue on Justice Lane has been a fixture of Frome’s arts and entertainment scene for many years, hosting everything from a Foo Fighters concert before the Glastonbury Festival to general election hustings.

The government is expected to announce in the spring the result of a £5m bid for funding which would see the venue enhanced along with three others in the former Mendip area.

Frome Town Council is now expected to throw its support behind the expansion plans – though it will not be committing any money to the project at this stage.

The full council will meet at Frome Town Hall on Wednesday, January 15, to discuss extending the Cheese and Grain’s sub-lease on the building, which would make it more likely that they could secure funding to expand their premises.

Peter Wheelhouse, the town council’s economic development and regeneration manager and deputy town clerk, said in his written report: “Councillors will be aware that the Cheese and Grain have an aspiration to develop an extension to their building, between that building and the Canoe Club.

“The Cheese and Grain building and most of the land needed for the extension are leased by Somerset Council to the town council, with a sub-lease to the Cheese and Grain.

“This leaves only 15 years on the sub-lease, which is likely to present a risk to the Cheese and Grain when they try to secure external funding for this project given that many funders would require a minimum of 25 years on any lease or sub-lease held by an applicant.”

The venue’s existing recording studio is used by “internationally famous artists”, in a manner which restricts the ability of local artists to book the equipment.

To rectify this, the venue wishes to establish a new centre (referred to as ‘Event Tec’) which will make more affordable ‘dry hire’ spaces available (i.e. those that can be used without a house engineer or producer).

Hand in hand with this improvement will come new vocational training for local people in a range of music industry skills, including sound engineering and stage lighting, logistics, hospitality, digital security and marketing.

The expansion project is expected to cost in the region of £1.6m to deliver, with the Cheese and Grain seeking to secure the funding from various external grants rather than from Somerset Council, Frome Town Council or the neighbouring parish councils.

The site was one of four cultural venues within the former Mendip area which were included within a £5m bid to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government in late-2024 – with the government expected to announce the outcome of the bid in the spring.

The full council meeting will be held at Frome Town Hall on Wednesday, January 15, from 7pm. The meeting will be broadcast via Zoom for those people who are unable to attend in person.