Cinema campaigners given hope (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Cinema campaigners given hope

10:22am Friday 15th December 2006

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RESIDENTS hoping to save the Odeon cinema from demolition say they are relieved after the building was given a stay of execution.

On Monday night, St Albans District Council's plans central committee rejected an application from developer Wattsdown Developments Ltd to demolish the 1930s Art Deco cinema, which campaigners say should be preserved for future generations.

More than 250 local residents wrote to the council opposing Wattsdown's plans to knock down the cinema, which closed its doors in 1995, and replace it with 18 two-bedroom and two three-bedroom flats.

The plan was rejected by six votes to one, on the grounds that flats were not a "satisfactory replacement" for the cinema.

After the meeting, members of the St Albans Civic Society said the rejection had bought them more time in their fight to save the building.

Society member Marion Hammant, who spoke against the proposal, said: "If there had been an acceptance of the scheme, by the councillors, we would have felt more desperate.

"The implications were that we had lost this building, but it ain't necessarily so."

Addressing the committee during the meeting, Mrs Hammant said "many anonymous blocks of flats" were fast destroying the appearance of London Road.

She said: "The Odeon is a landmark cinema, possibly one of the most important 20th Century buildings in the city.

"For residents it is a focus of nostalgic pleasure, a memory bank waiting to be tapped into."

She said the restorer of the Rex cinema in Berkhamsted, James Hannaway, was interested in restoring the building and thought it would be a viable project even if another cinema was built in the city centre.

For full story and more reaction see today's St Albans Observer.

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