Brentwood’s Cinema.

7th March, 2009

Just thought I’d put in a quick post.

I’ll give the local Liberal Democrats a brief nod for being quick to reply.

I sent a quick email last week: to some of the councillors quoted in a recent Gazette article; and got an automated out of office reply from Councillor Lewis.   Along with a reply from Councillor Kendall.

Here’s the email I sent.

Hello.

    It’s come to my attention that you have been quoted in this week’s Brentwood Gazette, after the recent Council meeting about the development about the proposed cinema.

    I’m personally in favour of the development, seeing it as a chance to try and find both entertainment and a job in the area.

    I’ve posted to my blog about this matter and wondered if you would like to comment?

Yours,

Paul Downie.

Councillor Kendall’s reply:

Dear Paul

Thank you for your e-mail.

    I have always been keen for a Cinema to return to Brentwood and support the principle of a mixed development on the William Hunter Way site.

    However I could not vote for the recent planning application because in my view the sheer size and scale of what was proposed was wrong for Brentwood. I believe that there should have been two or three development options for councillors and residents to consider that were of a size and scale more suited to the site and the town centre environment as a whole.

    I also believe there should have been a full Borough wide public consultation on the plans and an Environmental Assessment Study completed but both these requests were rejected by the administration.

    Any development on the site would have bought much needed jobs to the town but I think we could have achieved this objective without voting for this particular monstrosity.

Regards

David

Cllr David Kendall

Leader, Liberal Democrat Group

Brentwood Borough Council.

Hmmm … monstrosity.

Ok.

I’m certainly not be surprised that there’s been slightly iffy goings-on in the council chamber: you only have to look at Rollason Way’s parking to know there’s been a cock-up, somewhere.

But while I’m no economist, I’m fairly sure that that many film production companies tend to prefer make films roughly 90 minutes or so in length.   This means that they can – in the time it takes to show an episode of <i>Lord of the Rings</i> –  show two other movies, and make their money back faster.   Which, to me, implies having more screens, to do exactly that.

The movie business is exactly that: a <i>business</i>.

A multi screen cinema/cineplex*/what-ever they’re called, these day’s, is a way of maximising their investment in a faster time.

Which leads to what seems a sensible conclusion, to me.   That, simply, any developer who intends to build one will want to make one as large as possible; – with plenty of extra retail units, and the associated leases, to cover their costs.

Leave a comment, folks.

* That’s partly why the Brentwood’s 2-screen cinema went down.   Two screens meant more of a wait to see the new films we wanted to see.   Which automatically handed the two 6-screen cinemas at Lakeside an audience, on a plate.