Community groups and businesses are being invited to bid for four historic theatres.

Worthing’s Connaught Theatre, Ritz Cinema, Pavilion Theatre and Assembly Hall currently cost taxpayers’ £1.4 million a year to run.

To save money Worthing Borough Council is seeking expressions of interest from those who would like to take over the running of the venues.

Council leader Paul Yallop said: “Councils across the land are in difficult financial positions and Worthing is no exception. We have to look for savings.”

An advert has been placed in the May 27 edition of The Stage magazine asking for responses by June 10. The next step will be for the council to ask those interested parties to submit a detailed proposal and business case. This will then be considered by the Theatres Working Group, which was set up last year to steer the future of the venues.

One potential bidder is theatre consultant Jon Woodley, who started the Save Worthing’s Theatres campaign.

The 26-year-old wants to run the Connaught, with potentially other venues, as a community trust and place it in the hands of locals.

The pot-ential sale to a private firm of the 70-year-old Connaught Theatre in Union Place was revealed in February.

Theatres Manager Peter Bailey was keen to reinforce that no decision had yet been taken for any of the four venues and that in the meantime it was business as usual at all of them.