Fairfield Halls may never win back its audiences after shutting for two years for a £12m redevelopment, the venue's boss has warned.

The theatre complex risked losing its status as a leading London attraction or even being forced to close permanently if it stops hosting shows during the long-awaited revamp, its chief executive Simon Thomsett said.

Croydon Council announced the major refurbishment of the ageing venue earlier this month, with council leader Tony Newman boldly claiming "we are aiming to outdo the South Bank".

RELATED: Major plans to transform Fairfield Halls unveiled

The Conservative opposition group warned this week that plans to shut the Halls completely could "deliver a catastrophe", comments Coun Newman dismissed as scaremongering.

Mr Thomsett, in his first public comments since the revamp was announced, told the Croydon Guardian he also feared the venue would struggle to reopen.

He said: "Of course it is possible. There is less and less in the way of public funding ever year that goes by and councils are under enormous pressure to make savings.

"Re-opening means starting from scratch; it means recruitment, it means getting a skills base, finding people who know how to do this kind of thing. It takes quite a lot of time and it is an expensive process."

Fairfield also risked losing its place on the cultural ladder during the closure, suggested Mr Thomsett, who is calling for a phased development to allow parts of the venue to remain open.

He said: "You've got to find your audiences again and if you lose the cultural offer for too long, they go find something else to do, they get out of the habit of coming here.

"I would fear that loss. I think it would be quite a serious loss and difficult to regain. I think that needs to be considered."

The council hopes to offset the loss of audiences during the closure of Fairfield Halls' by using other local venues, such as Braithwaite Hall.

But Mr Thomsett said: "I believe quite strongly that a phased plan is better. I believe potentially overall it would cost less and of course it's better culturally that you have a continuity of offer while it's being done.

"Here is a famous institution that provides an important and well-loved service to the borough and to stop that seems to me to be a loss."

But Coun Newman dismissed predictions of the venue's demise as "preposterous," even branding Conservative leader Tim Pollard "the Victor Meldrew of Croydon politics" for his "wall of negativity".

Your Local Guardian:

Simon Thomsett, the chief executive of Fairfield Halls

His remarks came after Coun Pollard told a cabinet meeting last week: "This scheme is potentially a disaster.

"The idea that we close Fairfield Halls for two and half years and then expect it to re-open afterwards - what happens if the property market takes a downturn?"

Coun Newman later said: "It is preposterous talk. We have got a fantastically strong team working on it and for Coun Pollard to be questioning the integrity of the team we have assembled, I just thought was one of the most negative performances we have ever seen from a politician from Croydon."

The council leader claimed redeveloping Fairfield Halls in stages, as is favoured by Mr Thomsett and the Conservatives, would cost an estimated £4.5m on top of the £12m already allocated and take up to two years longer.

He added: "You would have to do the work over a longer period of time and do them during anti-social hours. 

"We want to do it in the shortest possible timespan and have a Fairfield Halls that's fit for the 21st century, not the 1960s."

But Mr Thomsett said he believed a phased development would be cheaper.

He said: "I think what the leader is quoting is a figure based only on the building cost.

"The main part of my argument is that doesn't consider the impact on the business. There are costs attached to reopening.

"The start-up costs for something of this scale are considerable and certainly my feeling is they would be likely to exceed any possible savings made on the building costs."

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Plans for the new-look Fairfield Halls were unveiled earlier this month

A report submitted to a cabinet meeting on Tuesday stated there "no human resources implications" of the development, on which work is scheduled to begin in spring next year.

But Mr Thomsett said he felt job losses were inevitable unless parts of the venue, which employs 70 full-time staff and around 140 casual workers, remained open.

He said: "If the council is determined to go for a full closure, then I don't know how you avoid redundancies in that circumstance.

"Clearly if you do close there is a lot less work to do and our workforce would need to be dealt with properly.

Despite his reservations over full closure of the venue, Mr Thomsett said he remained "enthusiastic and very supportive" of the plans to revamp Fairfield Halls and believed a new lease of life for the venue was "of paramount importance to Croydon's future".

The venue's 1,800-seat concert hall will be fully refurbished to include new seating and a modernised backstage area and the 755-capacity Ashcroft Theatre will be renovated to contain flexible performance and art spaces.

A new restaurant will open on the venue's mezzanine level, while a revamped bar and seating area on the ground floor will lead to a transformed College Green public square outside.

Bars, restaurants and homes will be constructed in the surrounding area, while Croydon College will also move into a new building under the proposals.