‘Harborough Screen’ was successful last night in obtaining planning consent from the council planning committee to site a mobile cinema unit in the town.  The decision paves the way for the first full time cinema in Market Harborough for almost 40 years.  The cinema will be located off St Mary’s Road close to Symington’s recreation ground on land previously used as a bowling green.

The project began over 4 years ago with a petition started by local schoolgirl Lucy Seaward.  In total 8,000 residents showed their support for a return to the town of a cinema.  Since then the organising committee have overcome various hurdles and last year secured a 100 seat mobile cinema unit for the town which is to be housed on the site.  Last summer a fundraising drive began to raise money to refurbish the unit through public membership, seat sponsorships and funding applications.  This raised enough to begin the work to refurbish the unit which is currently underway at a site near Wellingborough.  The funding raised to date has been used to transport the unit from its base in Scotland, revamp the exterior of the unit, repair the roof, refurbish the interior, replace and add additional lighting and purchase a new digital projector.

“It’s been a long struggle to get the cinema this far and I don’t think anyone involved would have believed how many obstacles could be put in our way.  This planning permission marks a major landmark in the campaign” comments Alastair Campbell one of the trustees of the project. Marion Lewis OBE, Chair of the trustees added  “We are delighted that the cinema has been able to secure a central location within the town.  This location ensures that  many residents will be able to be able to walk to the cinema, although there is ample parking nearby for those who will need to use  transport.  It will be a cinema showing films for the whole of the community.”

Planning officers delayed the application by 3 months over potential issues of noise from the cinema affecting nearby residents, and required additional sound reports to be carried out.  ‘Although the sound reports we produced showed that noise from the unit would not be an issue to residents nearby, we cannot prove this 100% until the unit is on site.  So, the cinema will use wireless headphones (with individual volume controls) for all customers initially – in fact it will be the only cinema in the world to do this” adds Marion.  Once on site and fully operational, it is hoped that further sound tests will show that this measure is unnecessary and the Dolby speakers already housed in the cinema will be used as originally planned.’’

The planning meeting voted unanimously in favour of the proposal with widespread messages of support for the project from the councillors present. In a survey carried out in the summer, 90% of Harborough residents said that the St Mary’s Road site would be an ideal location for the cinema with 92% saying that they would use it once it was opened.