A £10MILLION Cinema complex plan has been unveiled for Blackburn on a site earmarked for a new shopping development.
Restaurants and bars would also be included in the six-screen cinema complex, which would be built on land between Penny Street and Salford in Blackburn town centre.
The complex is being planned by the Property Alliance Group, and the cinema would be run by Preston-based Apollo Cinemas, which runs the four-screen cinema in King William Street.
The plan, which would result in the closure of the Apollo cienma, was unveiled two months after Manchester-based firm Peel Holdings, secured planning permission to build a ten-screen cinema as part of a £30million leisure scheme on land near to Blackburn Railway Station.
Apollo Cinemas had opposed the Peel scheme on the grounds it included retail space which, it said, would be to the detriment of the rest of the town centre.
The plans for the Penny Street site were submitted to Blackburn with Darwen Council this week and will go to the planning and highways committee for approval.
The company will also have to buy the land from Blackburn with Darwen Council, which assembled the site from several owners with a view to attracting a retailer to the town.
Any planning permission granted would have to be rubber-stamped by the deputy prime minister John Prescott because it is a breach of the borough's Local Plan, which sets out uses for all available land.
The Penny Street site is designated for retail, not leisure.
Steve Lavelle, property and development director of Apollo Cinemas Limited, said: "Penny Street is an excellent gateway site to Blackburn, highly visible, well served by public transport and with excellent car parking facilities available.
"We are planning an Apollo Premier brand, six-screen, 1,000 seat cinema.
"The development will include levels of technical excellence, luxury and comfort second to none.
"The company believes that this is an excellent location to expand our new concept of high-quality movie presentation with very high quality auditoriums and seating."
Coun Andy Kay, in charge of regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: "We will have to look at the plan, assess it on its merits and establish what impact it would have on the town centre."
Apollo Cinemas was originally part of the Apollo Leisure Group, owned by the Preston-based Gregg family, who sold it in 1999 to SFX Entertainment for £158million.
The leisure division was bought back by the family in 2002.
Since then, the company has announced plans to open a new cinema in London's West End, the first new complex to open there for a decade.
It is expanding into new areas while at the same time upgrading facilities in towns where it already has cinemas, such as Blackburn.
Mr Lavelle added: "We have a well-established cinema business in Blackburn.
"Our proposals to refurbish and modernise our building, which is listed, were halted when we realised that relocating to Penny St provided us with exactly what we needed.
"We are all committed to having the new cinema open quickly, possibly by the end of the year."
Nobody from Peel Holdings was available to comment.
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