Is our new picture-house set to be another boring remake?

When the matter first raised its head I, probably like most people, thought ‘Oh, that’ll be good – a cinema in the town centre.’

But a few days ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance who made me think again. The way things seem to be panning out is that this development which is ‘sure to bring people into the town’ is going to be little more than a carbon copy of the Eureka Park set-up.

A flurry of extra restaurants? Almost certainly the same ones as those clustered round the existing cinema. Mrs B tells me she has read somewhere that the new one will be showing ‘art’ films. That’ll get ’em flocking in! The chap who set me thinking said that, surely, since we already have a cinema, what is needed is a theatre. I’m inclined to think he’s right.

Ashford is never going to be nominated as a potential city of culture but there is a considerable number of people who would support a proper theatre – and a proper theatre might well prove the magnet that would bring people in.

The conversion of Saint Mary’s Church into a centre for the performance of nonecclesiastical entertainments was (and still is) fine as far as it goes but it could never, without major structural alterations, take the place of a real theatre.

The council’s refusal to consider supporting a theatre is ridiculous when we have such a superb organisation as the Ashford Youth Theatre crying out for a home.

Moving on to a vastly more important matter, the time has come for us all to insist that our beleaguered MP must throw his weight into the campaign to retain our A&E department at the William Harvey.

Assuming that the accusations of his inappropriate behaviour don’t cause him to be unseated as the government’s number two man, he must surely be in a position to affect the outcome of the current plan to destroy such a vital service, particularly since his party’s policy has caused the overcrowding problem.

Surely, even the dimmest of our councillors can be persuaded to understand that, without adequate infrastructure – of which hospital and schools are paramount – raking in the dosh by merely multiplying the population is not the right way to go.