Plans for a £100 million outpost of the Royal Opera House in the North West suffered a potentially serious setback yesterday when one of Manchester’s leading arts complexes said a new opera house in the city would “destroy” it.

Rod Aldridge, chairman of the trustees at The Lowry, said that the proposed venture would be “bad for the city, bad for the arts and bad for the taxpayer”. The Lowry could not survive if Manchester’s opera house opened as planned, he said.

Mr Aldridge urged Manchester City Council and the Royal Opera House either to scrap the plans or to allocate the new centre’s ballet and contemporary dance productions to The Lowry.

Plans to take the Royal Opera House’s brand to the North West were rumoured long before they were confirmed in October . From the start Royal Opera House Manchester (ROHM) was championed by Andy Burnham, then Culture Secretary and MP for nearby Leigh, who saw it as an opportunity to demonstrate the power of cultural regeneration during an economic slump.

It was claimed that the new opera house would create up to 700 jobs and transform the cultural landscape. In combination with the Manchester International Festival, the Hallé Orchestra and one of the country’s most vibrant music scenes, it would cement Manchester’s status as “a world city”.

A report by Graham Marchant, the arts consultant, for Arts Council England in March, hailed the proposed centre as “the most significant arts development in this country for a decade”. But it concluded that the plan was “not yet viable” because of the risk of “collateral damage” to existing arts organisations.

The Lowry, a modern complex to the west of the city, first opened its doors nine years ago. It has the largest public collection of works by L.S. Lowry, famous for paintings of northern industrial life populated by “matchstick men” figures, but it also hosts regular performances by Opera North, the opera company based in Leeds, and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Both are listed in an “indicative programme summary” for ROHM drawn up by Mr Merchant, who heads a steering group for the project.

Research commissioned by The Lowry into the impact of the ROHM’s artistic programming concluded that “the proposal cannot be made to work without destroying The Lowry’s business model, and that it fails to offer a viable alternative future for The Lowry”, a spokesman said.

Mr Aldridge, speaking on behalf of the trustees, said that The Lowry remained “committed to the overall vision of bringing the Royal Opera House to Manchester” but that it was “clear that the current proposal is not viable and cannot be made to work without causing unacceptable damage to existing arts provision”.

He proposed a “dual house model whereby the new facility would concentrate exclusively on opera and music” and The Lowry would provide “a new home for the Royal Ballet”.

The Royal Opera House said it was disappointed with The Lowry for its “premature” criticism. Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, said it believed that the ROHM plan was viable.

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