Resort’s cinema saga close to final credits

THERE COULD finally be an end in sight for Scarborough’s long wait for a multiplex cinema.

Scarborough Borough Council’s planning committee will meet next Thursday to assess the third application for the sixscreen attraction on the site of the former Atlantis water park in the town’s North Bay.

The authority’s planning officers had recommended the scheme be approved when the committee met in September but an 11th-hour objection threw a spanner into the projector, meaning the scheme was deferred.

North Yorkshire County Council, acting as the Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA), wrote to the council saying it could not support the scheme due to concerns about the impact the development could have in an area that was prone to flooding. The LLFA response arrived at the council just hours before the planning meeting was due to start. Yorkshire Water also submitted an objection on similar grounds.

Now, the authority’s planning officers in their report for next week’s meeting say that additional details supplied by the applicant, Benchmark Leisure, have addressed the concerns of the objectors and the scheme has, again, been recommended for approval.

The wait for a multiplex cinema in Scarborough has had a number of false dawns over the last four years.

Earlier this year, Benchmark Leisure announced it was delaying the proposed opening date of the cinema complex for the third time, blaming the difficulties in securing restaurants to be part of the scheme.

The six-screen cinema scheme was due to be open in 2018, that was then pushed back until July 2019 and then, most recently, to late 2020.