The curtain will come down for the last time on Bradford's Priestley Centre for the Arts in less than a fortnight.

The historic theatre will cease trading on 20 January - at the end of the current production Quartet - with the limited company which runs the centre being placed in voluntary administration.

The centre has struggled to secure its future for the past 14 months and owes creditors an estimated �60,000.

But after a unanimous vote at a board meeting on Tuesday night, chairman Glen Boldy confirmed the decision to close the centre.

This is a very, very sad day Glen Boldy chairman

Mr Boldy blamed the Chapel Street theatre's problems on its location near to derelict Eastbrook Hall and crime-ridden Little Germany.

"If we had been somewhere else in the city we may have been looking at a different situation," said Mr Boldy.

"We have been trying to get some sort of package together to save the theatre but we feel the end of the line has come.

"There is still a window of opportunity for somebody to come in and make an offer but as for this current board the only course available to us is liquidation.

Writer JB Priestley died in 1984

"This is a very, very sad day."

At an extraordinary general meeting scheduled for 4 February Mr Boldy will recommend the 430 theatre members agree to the liquidation.

The centre was established as Bradford Civic Theatre in 1929, and grew out of a theatre group established by renowned playwright and novelist JB Priestley.

The centre was renamed in 1996 following a major fire.

An archive of hand-written manuscripts by Priestley and Bradford composer Delius, worth an estimated �800,000, will be kept on behalf of the city's residents.