THE still-derelict Dance Academy has been kept on the top ten list of most "at risk" buildings according to the Theatres Trust.

The trust, a national advisory public body for theatres, has for the second year running highlighted the Grade II-listed building as one of the theatres in the country which it considers to be at risk of further damage or even complete destruction.

A spokesman for the body considered the building "one of Plymouth's best surviving Victorian buildings."

Last year, the body described the Palace Theatre on Union Street as "empty and in a poor state of repair" in its Theatre Buildings at Risk register (TBAR).

However, this year they say that while the building remains closed it is located in an area with "real regeneration potential."

The body claimed there was still the hope that as Lottery distributors' funding allocations return to pre-Olympics levels, capital funding would be more available to secure the future of many of the theatres on the risk register.

The venue — still owned by jailed nightclub boss Manoucehr Bahmanzadeh — was built for the Livermore Brothers and opened in 1898 as a music hall "forming part of a development which included the adjoining Grand Western Hotel."

Increasingly covered in vegetation, the building was said to have "elaborate Flemish Renaissance style face in terracotta — three main bays and three storeys with steeply pitched tiled roofs."

Mark Price, planning and heritage adviser for The Theatres Trust said: "Plymouth Palace is a fantastic and opulent theatre — I would say one of Plymouth's best surviving Victorian buildings.

"We recognise it as being of great significance and value with enormous potential to the people of Plymouth.

"We are keen to keep it at the forefront of people's minds in terms of cultural and community use as well as for regeneration."

In September 2008 the Dance Academy was named as one of the ten most endangered Victorian or Edwardian buildings in England and Wales, according to the Victorian Society.

Bahmanzadeh, who is currently serving a nine-year jail sentence for allowing the sale of Ecstasy in the club, may be forced to sell the building after he was served with a Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation order.

A hearing, which will determine how much he must pay, will be held at Plymouth Crown Court on September 27.

The TBAR can be searched online at http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk

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