Council cinema scheme shelved (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

St Albans council cinema scheme shelved

11:15am Friday 10th June 2011 in News By Neil Skinner

A plan to create a new cinema in the centre of St Albans has been shelved, as the city’s new rulers seek to get a grip on council spending.

St Albans District Council announced in January that it was to spend £405,000 converting The Maltings Arts Theatre into a cinema.

Its former Liberal Democrat administration – deposed in May’s general election – argued that the scheme would help secure the venue’s future by stemming current losses of up to £150,000 per year.

Former council leader Robert Donald explained: “…we can’t go on any longer propping it up every year with council taxpayers’ money when the council faces local government cutbacks of 27 per cent between now and 2013.”

His successor Councillor Julian Daly, however, believes the previous administration’s scheme was wasteful and ill-conceived – especially as the £1million scheme to reopen the old Odeon Cinema, in London Road, continues.

Councillor Daly, who this week also ordered a major rethink of the £20million Westminster Lodge scheme, told The Review: “We have shelved the previous administration’s plans.

“Over the years that I have been a councillor I have noticed that if you engage with the people of St Albans you always end up with a better product.

“After Westminster Lodge we’re going to make our focus the Maltings to see if we can find a better answer rather than to put in a cinema that will challenge the new Odyssey Cinema.”

Councillor Daly explained that an informal working group would be set up to consult on better and alternative options to secure the venue’s future. It is expected to report in September.

He added: “In the public domain the cost of this project was £405,000 but really it could have been more than that. If we were getting value for money with this and it was a sensible project we would support it – but the public has already raised twice as much money as that independently to build a cinema of their own.

“We have got a good community space there and we have got to decide what to do with it; can we run it as a theatre or will we have to do something else with it? But I don’t think that it will be a cinema.”