The Rose Theatre was saved from closure last night after an emergency meeting of Kingston Council narrowly passed a voted to provide £1.8m of funding over the next three years.

There was just a single vote in it on the night, with Tory councillors toeing the party line of calling for a rethink on the funding plans, and the Lib Dems doing likewise in pushing the spending through.

Great cheers went up from the public gallery when the 20-19 result was announced, which will see the theatre provided with £600,000 per year in exchange for a series of “community benefits”.

But opposition councillors were vocal in their disgust at the plan to bail out the theatre, with Kingston Conservative party leader Howard Jones calling the situation "nothing short of scandalous".

He said: "I have been at meetings how the theatre is going, and I have always been told ‘reasonably well’, but it seems that it's been in trouble since the summer.

"They've known since October it's needed this money to survive and it's taken them until now to bring it up.

"£1.8m over three years is too much money coming out of taxpayers' pockets.

"We are not against the theatre, but we are against the spending of council tax money on the theatre - and so was the (council) leader until recently. He's gone back on his promise."

While there was only muted applause and even some pantomime-style hissing for the Conservatives on the night, Lib Dem speakers were greeted with raucous cheers and clapping as they called for councillors to get behind the beleaguered theatre.

Grove ward councillor Chrissie Hitchcock told those assembled: "We have never had a whole public gallery of protesters about the theatre and that speaks volumes to me.

"It's the same as a marriage - you have bad times and good times, better and worse but you always stick together to make things work."

Last week's scrutiny panel decision to call in the funding plan caused stunned theatre chiefs to admit the Rose would have to close its doors by the end of the month without the extra money.

The decision, which has already been rubber-stamped by the council executive, calls for the £1.8m of interest-free loans to Kingston Theatre Trust to be repaid over 100 years in £18,000 instalments.

Since the Lib Dems originally persuaded developers to build the empty shell, Kingston Council has invested £8.4m – made up of a £1.8m loan to the trust which runs the theatre and £6.8m invested in fitting it out.

The building itself is worth several million pounds more, taking the total public money invested so far to about £11m – equivalent to £7 a year for each household in the borough.

Last August Council Leader Derek Osbourne pledged to close the public purse strings after handing an extra £250,000 to the Rose fit out.

But in May, the company set up by the council and university to fit out the theatre was forced to ask for an extra £350,000 to pay for cost overruns on doors, wiring and footwells, taking the final price tag to £7.15m - more than £638,000 over the original budget.

• What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

For more on the Rose Theatre see http://www.surreycomet.co.uk/rosetheatre/