Friends Provident’s proposal for an 8-screen cinema in Castle Mall Shopping Centre, Norwich, is expected to get outline planning consent today. At the same meeting plans for two rival schemes are likely to be blocked.
Council planners have recommended the city centre scheme for approval because it meets the sequential test put forward in PPG6.
The same criteria means Fordgate St James’s plans for a multiplex on the 4ha (9.88 acres) former Nestle site, Chapelfield Road, and Norwich Union’s proposals for a cinema on the 1.32ha (3.26 acres) bus station site, Surrey Street, are likely to be refused. Both proposals involve edge of city centre sites.
A Council-commissioned report published last year strongly recommended that that no more than two multiplexes should be permitted and found that the case for a second multiplex rested on “the most optimistic assumptions” of future demand.
Last week joint venture partners Gazeley and Railtrack moved their plans for a 14 screen UCI multiplex on the £75m Norwich Riverside one step further forward when they concluded a Section 106 agreement with the council.
EGi News 27/06/97
