内容摘要：The Foreign Office has confirmed it is providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in April and it is "in touch with the local authorities and his family".

The Foreign Office has confirmed it is providing consular assistance to a British national following his arrest in April and it is "in touch with the local authorities and his family".

It is a sign of the booming activity the venue has been enjoying recently.Last autumn, audience numbers were up 70% on the year before and a new strategy from local authorities is promising a hefty investment in its building.

But the scene across Oxfordshire is not always as rosy, with funding and access to affordable arts spaces sometimes proving a sticking point.The Covid pandemic was a tough time for arts venues.They had to deal with closures, adapting to virtual performances and keeping on top of costs.

For places like Unicorn Theatre in Abingdon and the Kenton Theatre in Henley-on-Thames, this was made far harder by the high running costs of their old buildings."We had to pretty much shut down for over a year, and you've got to pay all the costs of running the building," said Greg Bensberg, chair of Abingdon Abbey Buildings Trust, which houses the Unicorn.

"We staggered on through there but Covid was really bad."

Lottie Pheasant, theatre manager at the Kenton, said the pandemic had nearly brought the venue to its knees.The South African Property Owners Association said it was "irrational" to give "nil compensation" to an owner who held land for speculative purposes.

"There are many landowners whose sole purpose of business is to speculate in land. They do not get the land for free and they have significant holding costs," the association said, adding it had no doubt the law would be "abundantly tested" in the courts.Mabasa and Karberg said one view was that the concept of EWC was a "legal absurdity" because "intrinsic in the legal definition of expropriation, is a requirement for compensation to be paid".

However, the lawyers pointed out the alternative view was that South Africa's constitution "implicitly recognises that it would in some circumstances be just and equitable for compensation to be nil".South Africa's Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson has defended the legislation, breaking ranks with his party, the DA.