The great news is that after advertising the site as a leisure investment at least 2 cinema companies have put a bid in for the former Ritz Building on Northampton Road. Even better, the news is that one of them put in a fair and realistic bid. That is, the full market rate for the land. This is the first time in 3 decades that the town has been able to claim that a serious cinema group has actually bid at full price for the land and has made a commitment backed by cash. The company has drawn up full plans for a 6 seater digital cinema.

But as always, things are not so simple. The current owners are still pursing their plans to build retirement flats on the land. Because this is the most profitable type on development, they still hope to make more money out of this than by selling to the cinema group. Now as they don’t live in the town, you can hardly blame them for this. However if you do live in the town you may have different views.

If you think that the land would be better used by the cinema group that is proposing a mixed use on the site that includes retail, housing and a cinema then this is the time to say something. The alternative is that the building will be demolished and used for retirement flats and retail.

You may feel that the town would benefit from a cinema on the site. Personally I have not spoken to a single person in the town who would prefer flats to a cinema but unless the council receive objections, this is exactly what will happen.

There is a very short time in which to object, but just a few paragraphs raising your objection to the scheme is all it takes.

Quote reference: 07/01751/FUL & 07/01749/CON and write to:

Planning Department

Harborough District Council

Adam & Eve Street

LE16 7AG

If people make it clear that they do not like the plans to use this former cinema site for flats, but would like the use of the land returned to being a cinema then it will become unlikely that the current plan will go ahead. Without objections however, the scheme looks likely to succeed.

As a campaign we have done everything that we can. We’ve persuaded the owners to put the site up for sale, we found a cinema chain who wants to buy and put up a fair price for the land. Now it’s out of our hands. Let the council know directly what you would like on the land and what you think of the proposed scheme.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 9:47 am 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.