Claim over resort’s cinema deal denied

A COUNCIL has denied claims from one of its members that it has decided to terminate its agreement with the developer of a proposed new cinema for a seaside town.

Coun John Atkinson, a non- affiliated councillor for the Northstead ward in Scarborough, said in a newsletter to residents that the authority had “given notice” to Benchmark that it would not renew its development contract when it ends in December.

Scarborough Borough Council has now denied this claim. Benchmark Leisure was behind the £ 14m Alpamare Waterpark which opened in 2016 in Burniston Road and the recently completed Premier Inn hotel on the site.

The company has been trying to build a cinema complex on the site of the former Atlantis Waterpark in the town’s North Bay, but the scheme has yet to materialise.

As part of Benchmark’s agreement with the authority, it also had development rights to more land in the North Bay, including the former swimming pool site.

In his autumn newsletter, Coun Atkinson told residents that the council had now moved on from Benchmark.

A spokesman for Scarborough Borough Council has denied the claim and said notice had not been served on the developer.

The spokesman said: “No decision has been made. The council’s current development agreement with Benchmark is scheduled to expire at the end of December.”

Last year, Scarborough Borough Council’s leader Coun Steve Siddons appeared to suggest that patience with the developer had run out.

Speaking in November after the plans for the cinema had been approved, he said: “This is the third time the developer has promised progress.

“Personally, I have always said that an out- of- town site is the wrong place, especially for a council declaring a Climate Emergency.”