News story

1st August 2003

MP Pushes Forward on Dream of Cinema for Yate

Steve Webb with a character from the film "Chicken Run"

Northavon MP Steve Webb has started work on a long-term strategy to try to deliver a cinema in Yate to serve the wider community. The MP is responding to a recurrent desire by local residents who regularly identify a cinema as one of the amenities that they would most like to see in the Town Centre.

Later in August, Steve Webb will be visiting South Oxfordshire to meet with council officials who have succeeded in getting a cinema for Didcot despite commercial cinema operators initially saying that it would not be viable. The MP will be trying to learn from their experiences to see if something similar could be done in Yate. He has also arranged a meeting in London for late August with the new owners of Yate Shopping Centre to talk to them about the viability of putting a cinema in the redeveloped shopping centre.

Steve Webb said:

"It is very early days in what may turn out to be a very long campaign, but I am very encouraged to learn that cinemas can still be built in medium-sized towns provided there is plenty of public support.

"I will be asking South Oxfordshire District Council to tell me more about how they have succeeded in getting a cinema for Didcot, having been told initially that it was a non-starter.

"I will continue to liaise very closely with our local councillors who are very supportive of the idea. I also look forward to meeting the new owners of Yate shopping centre to see if the goal of a new cinema can be part of their long-term plans for Yate".