Concerned council leaders to contact cinema bosses

COUNCIL chiefs are to contact bosses at Cineworld about the threat of closure to cinemas in Loughborough and Hinckley.

Cineworld is closing all of its 128 cinemas across the UK this week, putting 5,500 jobs at risk.

The company runs the eight-screen multiplex in Baxtergate, Loughborough, and the five-screen cinema at The Crescent, in Hinckley.

Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council is to get in touch with Cineworld about the threat.

A council spokesman said: “The council is extremely concerned to hear the news that Cineworld, one of the biggest cinema operators in the world, is temporarily closing all of its UK cinemas from Thursday.

“The Hinckley Cineworld cinema takes pride of place in The Crescent, the multi-million-pound town centre mixed retail and leisure redevelopment scheme which opened in December 2015.

“The cinema is a key facility that the residents of the borough asked to see returned to the town as part of the redevelopment.”

Borough council chief executive Bill Cullen said he was very concerned about the threat.

“Clearly, this is of deep concern to our residents and particularly to Cineworld staff,” he said.

“We will be contacting senior executives of the company to request further discussions on safeguarding the long-term future of the facility.”

Council Leader Stuart Bray said: “This is extremely sad and disappointing news as the cinema is much loved and used by the residents of this borough,” he said.

“We will work with our partners including the Department for Work and Pensions to provide help and advice to Cineworld employees at this worrying time and to help safeguard the future of this great facility for our residents and visitors.”

The Cineworld move follows a series of rules hitting the already struggling industry – which had to close completely during the lockdown.

Recent rule changes mean people now have to wear a mask at all times when visiting a cinema, and that cinemas have to close at 10pm unless they are waiting for a film to end.

A series of major film releases have been delayed or have gone straight to home streaming.

Cineworld said on its website: “This is not a decision we made lightly.

“We did everything in our power to support safe and sustainable reopenings of our cinemas and we are so very grateful for our employees who implemented the new protocols, which resulted in lots of positive feedback from customers who visited our cinemas and felt safe.

“We were very proud of the fact that cinemas were open for two months and there was not one Covid case resulting from visiting the cinema.

“We cannot underscore enough how difficult this decision was.

“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate our future plans to resume operations once film studios are able to bring their pipeline of major movie releases back to the big screen.

“We can assure you that once a line-up of movie releases is confirmed, we will be ready to reopen our cinemas, as we did in July, with the same safety levels you have already seen while at the same time keeping the great experience that you are used to getting from us.

“A big thank you goes to you, our movie-loving customers; your health and wellbeing has always been our priority during this difficult time and we look forward to welcoming you back as soon as possible to enjoy a full slate of films.”