It now looks very likely that the former Ritz Cinema in Northampton Road is going to be demolished unless a bid comes through by this Friday.  Despite 8,000 signatures and the overwhelming support of the town and villages, the campaign to have a cinema in Harborough looks like it may come to nothing. Despite research that proves a cinema is viable in the town, despite countless other success stories of cinemas thriving in town centreres it looks as though we are going to be treated to more flats in this prime town centre site. What a wasted opportunity and what a shame for the town.  There was, for a while, there was a real chance that Harborough was going have a picture house and leisure amenity.  It would be somewhere at the very heart of the town for teenagers, families and indeed everybody to visit.  It would bring people into the town and be good for the economy of the High Street, but now unless something happens in the next few days it looks as though this possibility is gone for good. 

The good news is that all is not lost.  Because of the campaign started by Lucy and Mollie a new cinema will be coming to the town by the end of the year – something would never have happened without the campaign.  In just a few weeks we will be a 120 seat cinema located conveniently by the leisure centre.  This ‘temporary’ cinema could remain open for years to come – as long as the town uses it.  Perhaps it will remain open until a permanently housed commercial cinema is open again in Harborough.   

Indeed if our new temporary cinema is well supported perhaps it will lead to a cinema operator realising that 60,000 plus people is more than enough of a base to support a thriving cinema. By then it may be too late to save this site as it falls into the hands of people who don’t care about the town, but that decision is now out of the hands of the people and in the hands of property developers and planners.   

Let’s hope that sombody comes forward before this Friday with the imagination and the vision that the town needs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Harborough Cinema News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.