After initially voicing very vocal support for the McGuffin campaign to save the EMD Cinema, Waltham Forest Council decided to sabotage efforts to revive this unique building and instead build a multiplex right next door!
At a time when the EMD Cinema was finally back on the market and a number of bidders had come forward with significant offers to revive it as a cinema, the council announced they intended to subsidize the building of a new multiplex on the former Arcade site next door. The EMD was immediately withdrawn from sale.
It was announced the multiplex would be part of a proposed tower block of up to 20 storeys containing around 200 residential units. The project was also set to include “75,000 sq.ft. of new shops, cafes and restaurants”. The council teamed up with property speculators St. Modwen to deliver this ‘vision’ for Walthamstow.
In reality, the majority of the retail space (53,000 sq.ft.) was already reserved for cut price clothing retailer Primark who intended to open a huge two storey shop as the centrepiece of the development. The remaining space would be divided between two unspecified food outlets, a coffee bar and just one other shop. £884,000 of council funding was allocated specifically to subsidize the inclusion of a multiplex. This had a proposed seating capacity of 1,400 (well in excess of the adjacent EMD Cinema) while the council admitted no market testing had been undertaken to assess the viability of a multiplex on this scale. It was announced a planning application would be submitted in Spring 2008 with building set to start at the beginning of 2009.
However, no planning application appeared in Spring 2008 and by the Autumn it emerged St. Modwen had reported financial losses of some £20 million for the first half of the year.
Early in 2009 St. Modwen withdrew from the scheme and Waltham Forest Council decided to borrow £35 million to press ahead with their plan.
In a cabinet report, Cllr. Terry Wheeler (pictured), the local authority’s cabinet member for enterprise, said: “Unless the council is prepared to intervene it is likely that the development of the Arcade site could be delayed by several years by the current recession”. The council nonetheless decided to retain the services of St. Modwen PLC at a cost of £500,000 to continue with their design work on the project.
However, it quickly emerged the council’s new arrangements were in breach of European Law and had to be scrapped. In July 2009 work began to clear the site in order for it to be opened up as a public space. No further development on the site is expected until 2014 at the earliest.
With the entire scheme now on the scrapheap, Walthamstow remains without a cinema but still has one of the country’s finest cinema buildings lying idle in the middle of the town centre.
Ever since the Arcade-multiplex scheme was announced, the McGuffin Film Society argued this would not be the “quickest and cheapest” option but the least desirable – and slowest – plan for returning cinema to the area. If the council had not decided in favour of pursuing this multiplex – and thereby sabotaging the sale of the existing cinema – it is likely the EMD would already be back in use by this point.
