Shropshire Star

Oswestry group's Regal Cinema plan hit by funding blow

Ambitious plans to turn a former cinema in Oswestry into a £500,000 entertainment venue have been dashed after campaigners said that initial support had melted away.

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The Regal Project was to have seen the old cinema building in Leg Street transformed into multi-purpose arts, theatre and performance centre.

But those behind the dream have now admitted that with little prospect of obtaining grant funding to buy the building and with a local church also putting in a scheme to take it over, it was now unlikely to get off the ground. Campaigner Chas Nicholson said that since the inaugural meeting of the Oswestry Regal Project in April last year, it had not made much headway.

"In fact it has slipped backwards," he said. "Support has melted away."

He said that despite a £3,000 grant from the Oswestry local joint committee being ring-fenced for a feasibility study for the Regal Project, in the end the money was not awarded.

The funding offer was withdrawn over concerns about the sustainability of the project, about the move by the project's cinema arm Kinokulture to the Kingswell Centre and about the fact that Hope Church had a completed feasibility study as part of its aim to buy the old cinema building.

Mr Nicholson said the project has approached two people in the business community but with no positive outcome. He said: "The building is still on the market at a sum of £475,000. We do not have that sort of money. Oswestry Town Council does but, despite the vision of the Oswestry 2020 Town Plan and the widespread expectation that the windfall from the Smithfield development would be spent on the town centre, it will not commit to the project."

Oswestry Town Council clerk David Preston said: "The Regal Cinema project came to a community event in late 2013 along with other organisations with aspirations for future projects.

"The council said that our door was open to all groups but no application for funding has been received from the Regal Cinema group. The council acknowledges and respects the decision taken."

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