Empire Cinema Attached To Saith Seren To Be Saved

The Council Executive Board will meet next week to discuss potential ideas for the Empire Cinema building on Lambpit Street.

The building, which is attached to Saith Seren on Chester Street, has stood vacant for a number of years with many not even being aware it exists.

The listed building first opened in 1902 as a Music Hall, before re-branding as the Empire Cinema. However since it’s closure, the property has remained untouched.

Cllr Malcolm King described the Empire Cinema as a “lovely building”, but added that it is currently in a “poor state of affair”.

Due to the Empire Cinema’s listing, it has been difficult to apply a number of uses to the property.

In the past the building has been marketed twice but has received little interest from prospective buyers, leading to all the interested parties subsequently withdrawing.

Some of the options for the building have recently been reviewed and have included:

• Maintaining the property in its current state for the foreseeable future
• Marketing the property again when the property market has improved
• Seeking Listed Building Consent for demolition of the premises

However with regards to the possibility of demolishing the building, Cllr Malcolm King addressed the problem that the building is attached to the Saith Seren pub. Any demolition would also cost £220,000.

Most recently interest has been shown in the building by the trustees of Saith Seren, who have secured £5000 of funding to scope a study into using the disused building as a public facility.

Saith Seren are looking for the opportunity to work with the Council in collating the information for the scoping study which will be completed by the end of July 2013.

The report requests that the Executive Board next week to agree to Saith Seren funding a study into using the building as a public facility as an option.

The report also requests approval for the council to continue to maintain the property in its current state for the foreseeable future.