Design: Names in the frame

NICHOLAS Snowman, who quit his job as director of the South Bank on Monday, leaves behind him not just a redevelopment scheme with an uncertain future, but other pressing problems at the world's largest arts complex.

These include how to halt the decline in audiences for classical music; how the Hayward Gallery can compete with the new National Museum of Modern Art along the river; and how to cut the pounds 400,000 deficit.

Snowman's successor will need to be a person - or two people - with artistic vision and fairly ruthless business acumen. New chairman Elliott Bernerd will probably follow the example of the National Theatre and have an artistic director and a chief executive working side by side.

Someone who could combine artistic and business skills nicely is John Willan, head of music at BBC Worldwide. He was managing director of the London Philharmonic when Bernerd was chairman of the LPO Trust, so the two have a working rapport.

Also on the South Bank wish-list will be Graham Sheffield, artistic director at the Barbican Centre and former head of music at the South Bank. There are several other names certain to be considered. Anthony Whitworth Jones, the man Snowman will replace at Glyndebourne, is on the market, as is Patrick Deuchar, chief executive of the Royal Albert Hall.

Other contenders from the world of music include Andrew Jowitt, director of Symphony Hall, Birmingham, John Spearman, former head of Classic FM, and Nicholas Kenyon, head of Radio 3 and director of the Proms.

The odds are on a double act of Jowitt and Whitworth Jones. But don't rule out Willan or Sheffield upsetting the handicap.