CINEMA CAMPAIGNERS ‘THANK YOU’
The Picture Palace Campaign have thanked people for their “amazing support” over the past year.
“We would, also, like to say a massive ‘thank you’ to everyone who took the time to make a further representation to the Planning Inspectorate in support of Bromley council’s refusal of ‘change of use’ of 25 Church Road; to everyone who dug deep and made a donation to our appeal for funds to pay for planning advice; and to everyone who sent messages of support.
“The response to our appeal was overwhelming and we reached our target in less than 24 hours.
“£Your donations enabled us to submit a very strong rebuttal to Kingsway International Christian Centre’s (KICC) grounds for appeal against refusal of planning permission to change the use of 25 Church Road from Use Class D2 (Assembly and leisure) to a mixed-use comprising Class D1 (Place of Worship, Conference and Non Residential religious education and training centre) and Class D2 (Assembly and Leisure) use.
“We are using the balance of your donations to maintain our website and MailChimp account with a very small reserve for any future eventualities.”
Update on KICC’s Planning Appeal:
The Appeal process is underway but has been delayed. Final comments from Bromley council and the Appellant were originally due by mid-November 2015 but appear to have been put back until the end of January.
The average time for appeals to be determined by the Planning Inspectorate is 19 weeks from start to finish. Whether this delay will affect the final decision date is unclear, although our view is that the appeal should be very straightforward to reach a decision on.
We will be in touch when we have further news.
The future for the Campaign:
We will continue to explore all options for a cinema in Crystal Palace but our focus remains on 25 Church Road.
Crystal Palace is best served by retaining 25 Church Road’s exclusive D2 Public assembly and leisure use and restoring a cinema there, providing local entertainment for the benefit of the whole community regardless of background or belief – a use that would make a major contribution to supporting the economic vitality and viability of our town centre.
The Campaign was in touch with two cinema operators before the holidays and there is still very firm interest in bringing a cinema back to Crystal Palace.
We are a community campaign, should other opportunities present themselves we will seek your views.
Thank you for your continued support. We wouldn’t be here without it!
With very best wishes
Picture Palace Campaign team (Source: Picture Palace Campaign)
