Curtains for cinema development? (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Curtains for cinema development?

8:31am Wednesday 2nd July 2008

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CAMPAIGNERS against the demolition of the city's last cinema fear the unstable economic climate could turn the approved scheme on its head.

As bulldozers prepare to tear down the former Odeon cinema in London Road to make way for a block of flats, protestors worry developers could soon feel the pinch of falling house prices and mortgage shortages.

But it could be too little, too late for the old cinema.

Marion Hammond of the St Albans Civic Society said: "It is hoped that we don't get a scenario where the building is demolished and given the unstable economic climate will the flats even be built?"

"They could take the cinema down and still nothing would happen.

"It would be an example of an opportunity being irrevocably lost.

"There's so much incertainty at the moment," she said.

After years of planning applications, appeals and an abundance of protest letters, the development was finally given the go ahead at a planning meeting earlier this month.

Developers Wattsdown now have a three year period to get the building underway.

Firhan Malik, a St Albans District Council spokesman, said: "If no development takes place in this period then the permission will have lapsed and planning permission would need to be sought again. However, if the foundations are laid down in this time frame then development has taken place and the permission will stand."

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