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City facing last picture showdown
Campaigners to save Bradford's former Odeon cinema building look set for a showdown with council planners as the landmark's future is determined today.
Bradford Council's Regulatory and Appeals committee will be advised to give conservation area consent for the building to be torn down.
And in a separate application, which will also be considered today, they will be asked to give the go-ahead to a planning application for the New Victoria Place development – subject to referral to the Secretary of State and an agreement to cover a contribution towards affordable housing, education and recreation space.
Langtree Artisan and regional development agency Yorkshire Forward want to demolish the building to make way for the new development which includes offices, a 100-bed hotel, residential units and car parking and restaurant with public space.
Controversy has surrounded the plans since their inception and the council has received at least 767 representations objecting to proposals to demolish the building with only one in support.
Those objecting include Bradford Odeon Rescue Group, The Victorian Society, the Theatres Trust and the Council for British Archaeology, which says that further thought should be given to keeping the building.
However, English Heritage, says that keeping the building is not a viable option, after a Heritage Statement was commissioned by developers Langtree Artisan and Yorkshire Forward, which owns the site.
The Heritage Statement to assess the merits of the retention of the Prince's Way faade and twin towers of the building concluded that significant structural constraints and cost implications for undertaking such works outweighed any perceived positive benefits of retaining the faade and towers.
Commercial agency Colliers CRE was instructed to look into both the commercial and financial viability of retaining the faade and towers as part of the report. It found that retaining the faade and towers would mean a loss of more than 13m.
It concluded that any development to incorporate both the faade and tower would prove unviable from both a funding and letting perspective and would impinge on the financial viability of the entire development proposal.
However, the revised proposals for New Victoria Place would generate UK wide and potentially international appeal while generating 1,350 jobs.
But a former Bradford councillor, who has been inside the building before it shut its doors, claims that more attention needs to be paid to the building's interior.
Eric Sunderland said he knew the building well when he sat on Bradford magistrates' gaming committee which vetted gaming establishments including bingo halls.
The stalls of the former New Victoria cinema – which later became the Odeon – were the largest in the city.
He said: "I looked at it the year it was closed and I know that it's sound.
"I looked at the structure and there was nothing wrong."
He claims that having seen a set of the original conversion drawings from when the New Victoria cinema was modified to create twin Odeons and a bingo hall.
Having talked to tradesmen who were involved in the work, he is satisfied that plasterboard and wood can be removed "to regain the magnificent originality of the New Victoria."
But a report to be considered by the committee today says: "Originally purpose-built as a theatre, cinema and ballroom it has been demonstrated it would be unviable for the building to be reused for those purposes or other leisure uses."
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Weather for Yorkshire
Saturday 26 May 2012
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