Paviliion to attract 75,000 monthly visitors this summer, High Sheriff told

Accompanied by his wife, Jennifer, he paid a return visit to the pavilion last Friday - an official visit in his role as High Sheriff of East Sussex..

The High Sheriff had been a guest at the Kiri Te Kanawa charity concert in aid of the Chichester Cathedral fund shortly after last October's pavilion re-opening but wanted to come back on a less crowded occasion to see at leisure the transformation made by the pavilion's 8m make-over.

He told his hosts, pavilion director alan Haydon and Town Mayor Cllr Joy Hughes: "I used to come here when I was a little boy. My sisters were at Ancaster House School. We used to come here and have knickerbocker glories ..."

Clearly impressed by what had been achieved by refurbishment, the visitors were amazed to hear that the pavilion attracted 10,000 visitors over last October's opening weekend and through the winter months has been attracting between 50,000 and 60,000 visitors a month.

The director predicts that in summer this will rise to 75,000. Over coffee before being given a conducted tour of the pavilion, last Friday's interested visitors questioned the director closely on new direction the pavilion is taking.

Alan Haydon said the visitor profile was changing. The building was now attracting more families and young people.

The pavilion is now a regional centre of excellence for the visual arts. The director told the visitors: "It is great now that someone can go into the Tate Modern in London and say 'I saw that first at the De La Warr...'"

The Pavilion Trust is currently employing 35 full-time staff and 20 part-timers plus 20 casual workers.

The director said: "In economic terms, we are quite a large employer in the town. We have taken on quite a lot of staff and they are people who have come here because they like the idea of it - is not just a job."

Asked about the pavilion's links with local schools, the director said: "We have an education team and we are working with all the schools and colleges. We work both with formal education and with families and older people so it is an across-the-board programme."

The trust was also working in partnership with organisations like Sure Start and the Pestalozzi children's village.

Though the contractors have now largely finished with the basic building, much work still remains to be done on the two wings being built off its west end. The wing to the south will create much-needed office space.

The other will be an education and community space.

Mr Haydon said: "When we have finished our education space we can focus a lot of the activity there and multiply the activity.

"It's a team of two at the moment but we will need to increase that team so they can focus on schools and link with the universities."

The wing will have its own toilets and kitchen and will be able to operate if necessary as a self-contained unit.

The trust is currently undertaking a further round of fund-raising to complete and fit-out the wing.