Pavilion lottery bid decision imminent

Invitations have gone out in recent days to a gathering at the pavilion on Monday "to celebrate with us our plans to establish the De La Warr Pavilion as the major centre for contemporary art, architecture and live performance in the South East."

Rother council officers are unable to confirm or deny whether this wording is a coded reference to a formal announcement on Monday of what has become an open secret in recent weeks.

The Observer understands that, after a process which had its origins as far back as 1995, Rother has been awarded 4.1m by the Arts Lottery Board.

The Heritage Lottery Board has already said that it has earmarked a further 1.9m for the pavilion in response to the Rother bid.

If Rother has been successful it will immediately send out 50,000 pamphlets to local households, informing residents of the proposals and inviting comments.

Under the terms of the bid, Rother will effectively hand the running of the world-renowned Grade One Listed building to a charitable trust on a long lease.

A core of eight trust board members has already been established. They include Earl De La Warr whose grandfather, the 9th Earl, was instigator of the radical project which saw the opening of Mendelsohn and Chermayeff's winning Modernist design in 1935.

The board, including local politicians and professionals plus architects and artists to give it international identity, would "shadow" Rother's running of the pavilion during the year-long refurbishment and building programme before taking control on the project's completion.