A Carshalton community group has launched a bid for the available lease of the Charles Cryer Studio Theatre.

CryerArts Limited, which includes event promoters and businessmen, wants to put in a new bar and eatery and open a new arts and performance programme.

The four-person group put in their bid before the deadline on May 11 and is awaiting the council’s response next month.

Rodger Molyneux, one of CryerArts’ directors, said: “I’m heavily involved in the [Carshalton] village life, but for this the Cryer’s failed three times in the past and it needs proper commercial operation to keep it working and keep it going.

“Which is why we bid for the whole complex and looking at running the bar and the restaurant on the ground floor, all day every day, to make the profit to cover the cost of the building.

“We want to have stuff going on five or six nights a week in the theatre. Not just theatrical stuff but films, from beer festivals to comedy nights with our connections with Phil Dinsdale [one of the group members].

“It [Carshalton] would be a cultural desert if it wasn’t for the Cryer staying open, so to turn into anything other than a place for arts and entertainment – there’s nowhere else to go.”

Mr Molyneux, 66, has been a publican in the past and said he was ‘absolutely bowled over’ by the response CryerArts has received since going public.

A Facebook page is now live with their bid, and one of their posts lists plans for a ‘fully used event space’.

He added: “We’re committing to a 25-year lease if our bid is successful. The asset has been stripped so we have to buy all new equipment completely refit the place upfront, and the restaurant and bar, before we can get open.

“We’re not rich-bent but we’ve got reasonably deep pockets and we’ve all agreed to put our hands in our pockets. We’re putting our own cash into this.

“The deadline was a couple weeks ago, so all the bids are in. We’ve had confirmation that our bid is in the system, that it has been received, and we expect that they will come back and ask us further questions about our plans.

“But that hasn’t happened as yet.”

The Charles Cryer Theatre, according to Sutton Council, was 'extensively refurbished' in 1990 to become a studio theatre with seating available.

It is available to bidders for alternative use while the internal layout of the theatre building could be altered as well.

The deadline was May 11 while a decision is expected sometime late next month or in August.

To see the Facebook page, click here.