JUST THE TICKET
» Thumbs up for new cinema
AMULTI-MILLION pound bid to build a five-screen cinema, rooftop bar and space for restaurants in Cheltenham’s Regent Arcade shopping centre has been approved.
The grand revamp includes a fivescreen boutique cinema - where movie-goers will be able to comfortably watch films on a sofa - a rooftop bar and three new restaurants.
The development, which will cost £3million, was unanimously approved at a council meeting by Cheltenham borough councillors.
It is expected that the add-ons to the complex will open by the end of 2019.
The cinema is one of the new uses intended for the huge vacant space in the Regent Arcade that was home to fashion department-chain British Home Stores before its collapse in 2016.
The site is at one end of the arcade, between its Ormond Place entrance stretching down to the southern end of Regent Street.
The scheme will open up the southern end of Regent Street to commercial activity, creating a new central cafe quarter.
Revised plans drawn up by Bell Associates Architects, presented before the council’s planning committee last night, show sleek new frontage of the side entrance of the Regent Arcade and re-paving of the street.
Speaking before the committee, Liberal Democrat councillor Klara Sudbury, who represents the College ward the development will be built in, said she was “really pleased the improvement work is coming.”
Councillor Dennis Parsons said: “This is so what we want for Cheltenham.” Mr Parsons (LD, Pittville): “It’s what Cheltenham should be. I am so excited that we have something so exciting and different before us.”
No one spoke against the plans and it was unanimously agreed.
Tivoli has been named as the firm which will launch the luxury cinema in the Regent Arcade shopping complex.
Tivoli selected the Southgate centre in Bath, Somerset, for the launch of its first boutique cinema, which is scheduled to open in December. leigh.boobyer@reachplc.com