Friday, April 17, 2009

Clifton Cinema

The plan to convert the historic Clifton Cinema at Tower Hill to a Chinese buffet has been welcomed by most people in the local community following its closure as a bingo hall. The new owners are promising considerable investment for a tasteful conversion and many people are looking forward to their tasty menus.

Sadly a new proposal is antagonising the local community. This is to extend opening and licensed hours until 230 in the morning. Applications have been placed with both the licensing committee and the planning committee.

Licensing laws mean that only direct neighbours can object to the licensing committee and by the time licensing applications are circulated not many comments can be submitted.

However the planning application has now arrived and is likely to meet opposition. We know that immediate neighbours on Tower Hill and Law Cliff Road are concerned about car doors banging into the early hours. The problem we have is we don't know what the hours will be used for - if there is any suggestion of holding large parties with large amounts of alcohol into the early hours the wider community will also be affected - it's not a good place for a night-club! If it's just for the sake of a few late-night diners, it's hard to complain.

In the meantime we can report that ten days has been added to the consultation time for the planning application - taking it into early May. The consultation letter that went out earlier this week originally stated the application was until 14.30 hrs - it should have read 2.30am! So we are now awaiting a new consultation letter.

2 comments:

mike said...

I'm happy about the Clifton cinema being converted into a chinese restaurant rather than rotting away and turning into another crumbling rat infested ruin.But to stay open until 2.30am so that diners/boozers can get drunk in what is a quiet residential area of Birmingham seems utter madness to me.Up town in Broad st if that's what people want but in the centre of a quiet area where there's nothing but houses and a handful of small shops seems ridiculous to me,as it will result in more people tempted to drink and drive,more vandalism,more drunken behaviour,more late night noise,singing,shouting,fighting,crime,door slamming etc.why on earth does anyone want to drink alcohol till 2.30am?

Matt Gallon said...

I'm surprised Wing Wah are applying for the extension. I think it unlikely anyone would want to sit down and eat at this hour (a takeaway maybe). I just hope this doesn't backfire on the residents and Wing Wah and the scheme ends up not going ahead. In the current economic climate, I think there's a greater risk of crime and disruption in a derelict building than problems caused by nocturnal diners.