I went along to presentation of the cinema development being planned for Shady Walk/Cambridge Street Car Park/Old Household Waste site. I had a conversation with one of the representatives and it went like this:
The cinema is larger than the development brief.
You couldn't fit a 7 screen cinema in that building.
The capacity is 822. That averages 117 seats a screen.
Some will be smaller about 50 seats. The largest will be 180 seats.
The cinema is much closer than the development brief. This will effect residents amenity.
Yes it will and this is why we are having this presentation.
What about the theatre auditorium?
One screen will be able to be used as a theatre auditorium by local theatre groups. But is won't be like a normal theatre.
I see you've taken up all of Shady Walk as a Car Park.
The Town Council didn't mind so long as we find alternative space for new equipment nearby.
Why is the entrance is from Huntingdon Street?
Lidl won't give us permission to cross their land.
We've done a traffic survey. Yes, there are problems during the rush hour but cinema is open for later shows so this won't effect the traffic flow. - I have to agree on that for the evenings.
Not all comments were one way.
Do you know that Mr Rowley is giving £1 million to this project?
Yes I do and only £1 million for all the land that he is selling for Love's Farm. Don't make me laugh!
It is Cineworld who are going to run this.
Yes I have been to Cineworld and my girlfriend and I don't like Cineworld so we go to Vue at Cambridge. If these are going to be such small screens we'll carry on doing that. But the operator isn't the issue here. It is the size. I see you developed Cambridge Leisure Park. I'd like to something like this in St Neots.
Yes, I've had lots of dealings with local residents, there, over issues and attended many residents meetings.
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Now I'm back home I thought I would look up Cambridge Leisure Park and see how near the residents actually are!
I've outlined the complex in yellow. This is far from local residents. In St Neots case residents will back onto the development. Wrong development in the wrong location.
I didn't see how they could fit a 7 screen into the larger building. They can't. Turnstone are making the best of a bad job given to them by HDC. It is the political elite of the Town who want this cinema here. This is bad for St Neots and bad for the residents. Yet our local politicians are blind to the fact. They plough on as though this is something St Neots must immediately have above everything else.
The obvious site is on the new development area to the East of the Town.
Jonathan Djanogly couldn't resist to get in on the action.
3 comments:
I went to this presentation too and I'm very concerned about the size of the development.
I raised issues about traffic flow as the junction Huntingdon Street/ Cambridge St is always very busy. Although the shows will be evenings and weekend, the empty units are expected to have restaurants, which means the complex will be busy at other times and it will cause chaos.
I also raised the issue of parking, as they seem to think that it would be paying, which means that people who come to the complex are likely to try and park in nearby streets, and local residents won't be able to park in their own streets. I also worry about noise and pollution,as the car park will be almost right at the back of my garden.
Has anybody got any experience with protesting against the council ? I keep feeling that we will have a greater chance of being heard if we form an association of local residents or something like that. The surveyor I met with gave me the names of the people looking after the project at HDC.
I also worry about this development, especially the noise and pollution that would be caused by this suggested car park. My garden will also back on to it.
Does this mean that through the summer months we will have to keep our windows firmly closed to keep out the noise of all the chattering public, banging car doors, revving engines , car horns ......
And why is it acceptable for us and our children to potentially suffer from a broken nights sleep EVERY night of the week.
Having a local cinema would be great , but not one that has been squeezed into a ridiculously small area and is closely surrounded by peoples homes! How many other cinemas are positioned that close to houses? In my experience they are usually on designated leisure parks where the facilites can be more freely enjoyed.
Ok, so basically the council want to give us a cinema with one hand and take away a whole areas quality of life with the other.
I wonder what all us 'locals' would prefer?
The problem with objections is you need your own evidence to back up your objections. Take pictures, count cars in the car park. Show from your own evidence how this development can and will hurt your amenity ie: how this will affect your property and your lives.
I feel the cinema development is in the wrong place. If you don't want you houses blighted by this development you will need to protest and object with evidence. It will take time and effort. If you want the Town and District Councils to listen then you are going to have to protest and gather evidence now!
Go to the webpage link below and see what you can do about it!
http://snrednek.blogspot.com/p/object.html
I know I keep repeating myself but you have to produce evidence to back up any objection. A ton of evidence will not be ignored and would prove difficult for the Councils to ignore.
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