| Topic: | Council To Buy (and Sell?) Cinema Site | |
| Posted by: | Eric Alan Leach | |
| Date/Time: | 15/04/10 07:12:00 |
| Ealing Council Regeneration Supremo Brendon Walsh is quoted as telling Empire Cinemas to start building something soon behind its 'Brandenberg Gate' site opposite Ealing Town Hall or the Council might make them sell the site to the Council. On the face of it this seems like a positive step. However if the Council were to buy the site one wonders what might happen next. I know the Council runs schools, parks and car parking enforcement - but a cinema? Highly unlikely. Recent Council policy is to sell off public land to property developers (egs Dickens Yard, Green Man Lane Estate and Sherwood Close/Dean Gardens Estate). So one supposes that the Council would sell off the land to a property developer. The current development site specification ('Site 60' in the 2004 Ealing Unitary Development Plan) is suitably vague is to what could be built on the site egs '...a cafe, community arts, education and residential...' and '...Consider large development site for mixed use....' The new draft plans for Ealing Town Centre (Ealing Local Development Framework (LDF) September 2009 Draft Core Strategy) make no explicit reference whatsoever to building a cinema. However it does make reference to building 1,917 homes in Ealing Town Centre by 2026. Dickens Yard will deliver 698 homes so where might the other 1,219 homes be built? It does make you think doesn't it. |