"You co-built Riverside Theatre. Your voice now could help protect it”- campaigner appeals to foundation for support

Steven Millar has written to the Gulbenkian Foundation “with urgent concern about the imminent closure of the Riverside Theatre in Coleraine, an institution which Gulbenkian Foundation helped found”.

The Gulbenkian Foundation promotes the ‘development of individuals and organisations, through art, science, education, and charity, for a more equitable and sustainable society’.

On May 29, Ulster University, on whose Coleraine campus the theatre is situated, confirmed that “Riverside Theatre operations will cease from August 2025”.

Mr Millar then wrote to the Gulbenkan Foundation, as well as Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons and Minister for the Economy Caoimhe Archibald, claiming that the University’s announcement was made “without public consultation, without a feasibility study, without an equality impact assessment, and without any formal process to explore viable alternatives.”

"This isn’t just a devastating civic and cultural loss. It also violates the public and charitable commitments under which Riverside was founded and dishonors the spirit of Gulbenkian’s original investment,” said Mr Millar.

The Riverside was built in 1976 by the New University of Ulster, in partnership with Coleraine Borough Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, a public fundraising appeal and the Gulbenkian Foundation.

"Designed by Peter Moro, it remains the only flexible-format theatre of its kind on the island of Ireland. From its inception, the Riverside was never a conventional university department, it was a civic and cultural asset, created for the benefit of the wider public.

"To allow its closure without scrutiny would not only be a moral failure but is also legally questionable,” Mr Millar wrote.

Addressing the Gulbenkian Foundation, Mr Millar continued: “This is not a dying theatre. It is an underfunded one. There are viable options: we are actively exploring a charitable trust or a lease model to allow continued operation.

"But these alternatives are being shut out before they can be tested. Ulster University has declined, so far, to pause the closure timeline or publicly engage.

"That is why we are calling on you as a founding funder and cultural leader to intervene. You co-built Riverside Theatre. Your voice now could help protect it.”