A national theatre company will be created

The Arts Factory in Greater Easterhouse, in the east end of Glasgow, is to be the administrative hub of the project, which was announced earlier this month.

Culture Minister Frank McAveety told MSPs that a major new campus will be built at the site over the next two years.

And he said that basing the National Theatre in Easterhouse demonstrated the Scottish Executive's commitment to ensuring that all Scots should benefit from the project.

He said: "The responsibility of the National Theatre of Scotland will be towards the people of Scotland - it is their theatre.

"It is about making the arts relevant to our communities and the people that live there.

'Increase participation'

"It is therefore fitting that Greater Easterhouse, which has demonstrated a commitment to the arts as part of the area's regeneration, should be our preferred location for the theatre's administrative office."

He added: "The Arts Factory ... is at the heart of the community and its main focus will be to encourage public participation in the arts."

The Greater Easterhouse cultural campus will provide arts, leisure, learning and training facilities and comprises the Arts Factory, Easterhouse swimming pool and John Wheatley College.

Easterhouse was developed as a housing estate in the 1950s and became synonymous with deprivation, poverty and high unemployment.

It is officially one of the 20 most deprived areas in Scotland and was famously visited by Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith as part of his party's attempt to stand up for the most vulnerable in society.

Funding plea

Finance minister Andy Kerr announced a fortnight ago that the executive was making £7.5m available from money left in last year's budget to get the National Theatre off the ground.

The announcement came after decades of campaigning for a National Theatre by arts lovers across the country.

The project will not support a permanent company of actors or be housed in one particular theatre.

Instead, it will commission and develop work from theatre companies, writers and directors before staging them in existing venues across the country.

Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Donald Gorrie warned that funding should not be taken from regional theatres to pay for the new project.