Picturehouse site car park plan submitted
THE former Picturehouse Cinema site is set to become a car park, although the landowner has insisted the plot will be developed into a hotel in the long-term.
Stratford Picturehouse on Windsor Street was pulled down at the beginning of 2020 as a new 79-bed hotel was approved for the site.
However, nothing appears to have happened since then with the land remaining empty.
Last week an application to turn the site into a car park temporarily for 12 months appeared on the district council’s website.
Landowner Igor Kolodotchko told the Herald: “The hotel plan is still going ahead, there is a sound agreement in place, but with Covid and the Travelodge CVA, everything has slowed down and we’re not going to be able to start that project until next year.
“However we have submitted an application to use this land temporarily as a car park, it will bring a few more pounds in and it is better than having that site sit empty. The council are supportive of the hotel project.”
When asked whether he thought people would be unhappy about the cinema being demolished to make way for car parking, Mr Kolodotchko said that the financial state of Picturehouse parent company Cineworld meant it wasn’t viable for people to expect a cinema to have remained on that site and that he had been subsidising it for years.
The landowner has previously spoken about the decision to approve Stratford’s Everyman Theatre at Bell Court, which he says made the continued operation of the Picturehouse unviable.
Dr Liz Willetts, a long-term opponent of the cinema demolition and hotel project, said: “We’ve had to move out of Windsor Street because of the noise and disruption of the demolition and the prospect of a huge Travelodge looming over us. I am concerned about this car park application because there seems to be a lack of detail about what will happen after 12 months. You wonder whether this is just the thin end of the wedge and it is all about getting permanent permission for a car park. There are environmental issues with tarmacking over an area like that, with the fumes from the asphalt and so forth, should that be allowed if it’s only going to be there for 12 months.
“Nobody seems to know if Travelodge are still committed to that site, they announced 17 new hotels earlier this year and Stratford was not on that list. The whole area has just been left as a total eyesore since the Picturehouse was demolished.
“I’m very surprised the council allowed the demolition to go ahead if there wasn’t something shovel ready set to go in.”
A spokesperson from Travelodge confirmed that the company remained committed to operating a new hotel within the Stratford area, but could not comment specifically about the Windsor Street site.
