Gwent | Archive | 2001 | August | 7
From the South Wales Argus, first published Tuesday 7th Aug 2001.
CWMBRAN'S new £8.5million cinema complex - already nearly six months behind schedule - is to get a new look after developers dumped plans to include a nightclub and health and fitness centre.
The three-storey site on Glyndwr Road will now feature a massive two-storey super-pub instead.
The project designers, Boyes Rees Architects, would not comment on the new project, or the reasons for the scrapping of the fitness centre.
But an amended planning application was lodged with Torfaen county borough council and has now been approved at a meeting of the planning committee.
Initial plans were for a health club, restaurant and nightclub on the ground floor, while the upper two storeys would contain the cinema itself. Instead, the site's ground and basement floors will now house a pub, restaurant and cafe bar.
Work was due to begin on the six-screen Metro cinema in February or March this year, on the site of the former multi-storey car park, next to Cwmbran Centre for Young People. The car park was bulldozed last autumn in preparation for the contractors to start work on the building.
The Metroplex-owned cinema will feature seating for 1,102 moviegoers, a drop-off point and disabled parking, along with a controlled pedestrian crossing across Glyndwr Road. A new footpath must also be built from the site to the multi-storey car park further along the road and a number of mature trees to the rear of the development must not be damaged, as they are covered by Tree Preservation Orders.
And access links will be improved to the nearby subway. Up to 70 jobs could be created when the privately-funded complex opens for business at the end of this year.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008