£7 million plan for cinema (From Stroud News and Journal)

£7 million plan for cinema

STROUD will have its long-awaited cinema within the next two years. A new scheme has been accepted by the council which will see £7.25 million invested in a five-screen cinema, leisure complex and refurbishing the Merrywalks shopping precinct.

The plans will be carried out by Manchester-based Streetlands which already owns the shopping centre.

The new scheme will replace the one put forward by Deeley Freed last year and will see an additional £3 million ploughed into the town. A bowling alley, family pub, and 35,000 sq ft of retail space anchored by an as-yet-unspecified high street name will also be part of the development.

"The cinema will be delivered," said Cllr John Stephenson-Oliver, leader of the district council, yesterday. "It has taken a long time but we are extremely pleased that we've got to this point."

Building work should start by June next year and it is anticipated that the development will be complete by the end of 2004.

Cllr Nigel Studdert-Kennedy, the cabinet member responsible for the development was slightly more cautious. "It is obvious to everybody that this is an estimate and building contracts are renowned for not being 100 per cent accurate in terms of timing," he said.

And the scheme does not come without a hefty price tag. The council will be investing £250,000 of tax payers' money and as a sweetener the bus station will be sold to the developer for a nominal sum, expected to be somewhere in the region of £1.

But Cllr Stephenson-Oliver said this was standard practice in leisure development and if it could secure these extra facilities for Stroud and the surrounding district it would be money well spent.

He also said Streetlands' proposed investment showed growing faith in Stroud and would encourage other developers and retailers to show more interest in the town.

For more responses to the cinema plans, including a comment from the SNJ, see this week's paper.