Cineworld pulls out of new leisure park

Colchester City Council is seeking a new cinema operator to move to a unit at the Northern Gateway leisure park

A council is in "serious discussion" with two cinema operators after Cineworld stepped away from a multi-million pound leisure park in Essex.

Colchester City Council said the business, which entered administration in July 2023, could not proceed with its lease at the Northern Gateway leisure park because of its financial restructuring.

Liberal Democrat council leader David King would not say which competitors had expressed interest in the site, but said that the conversations had been "encouraging".

"This is a decades-long project that's off to a slower start than we wanted, but it is off to a good start nonetheless," Mr King said.

The front of the cinema has not been fitted inside

Signs at the development, near junction 28 of the A12, name 12 brands, excluding Cineworld, which had agreed to open at the site.

But only six of them, including a hotel, bowling alley, electric vehicle charging station, and three fast food chains, have opened so far. Another three units are currently available to let.

The council said some of the businesses had decided to delay fitting out their units until the future of the cinema had been confirmed.

Asked what the authority might like to do with Cineworld's unit if a rival did not step in, Mr King said: "I really don't want to say. I don't mind what goes in that place, whatever brings in a rent, whatever works for the public.

"Public taste changes, the units could be changed, we could have a number of alternative leisure uses in that location if that was the only way we could do it."

'Fluid, not absolute'

In March 2023, the Daily Gazette reported Colchester City Council said a contingency plan was in place with other providers if Cineworld did become insolvent.

"I think 'plan B' is not perhaps the way I would put it today," he told BBC News.

"We've always understood we have to look at the marketplace. In that sense, it's sort of more fluid than an absolute."

He refused to be pressed on how much public money had been spent on the Northern Gateway scheme so far.

The council said in 2021 it would cost £65m.