AN award-winning gallery owner has snapped up space at a new project designed to rejuvenate the Great Yarmouth arts scene.Michelle Payne, owner of The Upstairs Gallery at Beccles, has bought space on the first floor of seafront-based The Courtyard, which is due for an Easter opening.

AN award-winning gallery owner has snapped up space at a new project designed to rejuvenate the Great Yarmouth arts scene.

Michelle Payne, owner of The Upstairs Gallery at Beccles, has bought space on the first floor of seafront-based The Courtyard, which is due for an Easter opening.

The �400,000 development is located next to next to Blackfriars Brewery on Main Cross Road and will offer artisans from the area a space in which they can make and sell crafts.

Mrs Payne, whose current gallery was given Sunshine Coast Tourist Award for Best Small Attraction, will name her new project The Upstairs Gallery Norfolk at The Courtyard. This new gallery venture, whose owner also won Business Brain of Britain, will showcase the work of an eclectic mix of East Anglian artists.

Joe Larter, who runs The Courtyard with Bruce Larter and previously founded Lowestoft's Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park, said: “We are so pleased she came and had a look and decided this was the place to bring her expansion. I could not have a finer Christmas present.”

He added one of the ideas in the pipeline would be that some of the artists would paint in the covered courtyard space, and that there was still plenty of space to be rented by other artisans. Fitting out and lighting the exhibition space has already started and it is expected that the Payne gallery will move in to start preparation work during January.

For more information, visit http://the-courtyard.co.uk.