Flats plan ends former Ritz site cinema dream
THE DREAM of returning the silver screen to Harborough’s former Ritz Cinema is over after a firm announced plans to turn the building into retirement flats.
Churchill Retirement Living shut the door on years of rumour and conjecture surrounding the Northampton Road building by announcing their intentions this week.
The building already had planning permission for a retirement flats complex, secured by former owners Alislane in 2008.
Talks to put a cinema there continued for several months and a number of options were explored, but all proved fruitless.
Hoardings saying Churchill had acquired the site went up late last week and in a statement this week, the firm told the Mail: “We are looking to submit a planning application in the first half of this year for the quality build and design of retirement apartments.
“The new development will feature a selection of self-contained retirement apartments, all of which will benefit from a video-entry system, a 24-hour emergency telephone system, and a lodge manager.
“Communal facilities will include an owners’ lounge and guest suite, and landscaped gardens.”
The building was home to the Ritz Cinema for almost 70 years until it closed in 1978.
It was most recently a Kwik Save but has sat empty since 2005 and the dilapidated building has become an eyesore sitting on one of the main routes into the town.
Alastair Campbell was behind a campaign to return the silver screen to the building.
He told the Mail this week: “I think it’s really sad, if it goes ahead, that the building will be demolished.
“However it is an eyesore and it doesn’t look like there’s a way of making it economically viable as a cinema, even as part of another project there.”
However Mr Campbell said plans to install a mobile cinema – the Harborough Screen – in the town’s Symington Recreation Ground were progressing and that the unit would be open by the summer.
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Weather for Harborough
Tuesday 22 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
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Wind direction: North west
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