Forum Topic

Former ABC Cinema - Brandenburg Gate?

Taking some German friends around the Borough they noticed the sad latticed facade of the old cinema standing forlorn on an empty building site opposite the Town Hall."It's like the Brandenburg Gate," they said.I laughed and winced with embarassment at the same time. Then I had a strange vision of a new grand "Brandenburg Gate" style entrance to an imaginative sports or entertainment facility leading directly on to Walpole Park.Could this be the future plan? Perhaps we can get a future Council to prepare a planning brief, if the funding could be found?

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6025d34 Comments

Your Brandenburg Gate comment makes a lot of sense as it is a gateway  into desolation and demolition.Desolation and demolition is a defining feature of the centre of Ealing - Dickens Yard, TVU, the putative and empty 'value' hotel site, Prince Evans that was (demolished), Ealing Cross (new and deserted), the old BBC car park (empty and deserted for years, Villers House (empty and deserted for years), The Feathers/Town House pub (boarded up), and the empty YMCA.The future plan for the whole of Ealing will emerge in 2014 with a government approved Ealing Local Development Framework (LDF). Councillors and Planning Officers will be meeting again, in public, to 'progress' the LDF at 9:30am on Wednesday 14th April in Ealing Town Hall. Come along and taste the intellectual rigour that is being expanded on this big and complicated task. I'll certainly be there.

Eric Alan Leach ● 6024d

What about the plot just a few metres west of Perceval House?That's been derelict for at least 30 years.Make a good tram depot though.

Alan Brainsby ● 6024d

Viktor and Eric,This may be a good time for the heads of the what increasingly looks like the "degeneration team" tucked away and buried in secrecy to comment.So Hayes and Millican tell us what is happening? Cameron talks about mending broken society how about broken built environment? Arthur

Arthur Breens ● 6024d

Perhaps if the use of old cinema facades as gateways to somewhere is being planned, there's another one on Mattock Lane awaiting a sympathetic treatment!

Robin Hall ● 6024d

The Walpole Cinema in Bond St (as was)and where/how it is now

David Archer ● 6024d

David,Thanks for the nostlgic photo.Now if you walk ino the car park where the current Walpole Cinema entrance arch now stands, impaled to the adjoining wall of a house, you can take a picture of the back of the ABC Cinema arch, and it gives you the view that makes it resemble the Brandenburg Gate. People do not often see it from that angle.

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6024d

Sad it to  had to close but when  you see the sort of double bill it was showing, its not surprising.

David Archer ● 6023d

Brandenburg Gate?  Mmmm.More like the last remnant of the Berlin Wall, redundant and decrepit. As far as I can make out the only beneficiaries of keeping it there are those who happen to work in the buildings opposite.The facade isn't unique or particularly attractive placed where it is between brick building.I wonder what went through the minds of the Corporation's planning department when it was proposed?If something doesn't happen soon perhaps the council could place a Compulsory Purchase Order on the site, brick up the back of the facade like the Walpole's, and grass over the mound of rubble at the back renaming it Gillinge Park to compete with Northala Park.Anyway isn't there a financial penalty clause in the planning permission if the cinema is not completed within a given time?

Alan Brainsby ● 6023d

Alan, do you by any chance have more info on planning penalties?

George Knox ● 6023d

George, this a very quick reply as I'm going out but will investigate.I vaguely recall that when reading about the original redevelopment permission that there was a (financial) penalty clause. Whether I saw it on the Council's website I can't remember. I shall dig  around (is that the right expression?) later this afternoon.

Alan Brainsby ● 6023d

I too would be interested to see if there are any penalties.In strictly planning terms there would not normally be penalties for failure to carry out a planning proposal in a 5 year period. The only penalty would be the need to re-apply for permission if the scheme were to continue. However it is possible that there may be a formal agreement in this case with the Council on a commercial basis and then penalties may indeed arise.

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6023d

So where are Hayes and Millican to tell us what is happening?

Arthur Breens ● 6023d

As far as I know the facts are as follows:The planning application to pull down the old Forum Cinema (except for the facade) and to replace it with a new 16 screen cinema complex with 3072 seats and ancillary meeting/exhibition hall and cafeteria was lodged in November 2003. The Council approved it subject to a £100,000 being spent by the developers on landscaping and repaving the foreground, £225,000 for a general contribution to Ealing Town Centre plans, £25,000 for a study on a CPZ in Mattock Lane as well as a contribution to the Council's costs for the planning brief and legal agreement. Most of the local organisations were in favour but their request to include the Walpole Cinema arch in the building was rejected by the developer.Five years later the building had been demolished and nothing else happened. So in March 2008 the Council have given approval yet again for another 5 years without penalty clauses being invoked and without changing planning conditions, except that the cost of the landscaping was increased by a further £130,000 and the two other proposed contributions were to be index-linked. As the Council did not impose any penalties as such in 2008, they have no leverage on the developers to carry out the work now. If nothing further is done by 2013 the Council can again reconsider its position. We had better have something more to say before then, I think. Incidentally the decision in 2003 to do away with parking facilities was partly based on the presumption that there would be a tram service to ease access by public transport. Although the tram was not an option by 2008 the transport requirements were not changed as far as I know.

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6023d

Thanks Wiktor for the info.I checked back to where I thought I sourced the information*.  It seems it was a more up-front charge. But as Eric Alan Leach pointed out - was it ever signed into the agreement?* P/2003/5043I think it's been mentioned elsewhere but completion is expected late next year.Of course the owners could a quick and nasty. Brick up the facade, pave over the land and make it a drive-in cinema, using the rear of the facade as the screen!

Alan Brainsby ● 6023d

Yes they could. This does need monitoring in the new Council after May.Councillor Ian Potts said at the the March Ealing Broadway Forum last year that the cinema was expected to be up and running by Christmas. He meant last Christmas. Perhaps he can cover his embarassment by being more vigilant this time.

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6023d

Here is the full image of the Brandenburg Gate:-http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy47/wikmos/BrandenburgGateEaling.jpg

Wiktor Moszczynski ● 6018d

Why is a cinema so important in any area?Television came along, then video, then Sky, then cable, then DVD, then great big TV's with surround sound. Film on demand is common, as are film rental places.The whole concept of cinemas is outdated and belongs in the Ark.

G Lord ● 6018d

Good Lord!!! What a statement! You obviously havent seen Avatar in the cinema. I dont care what system you have at home, there is no way you could replicate a cinema screening. Even a small movie is great to see in the cinema with an appreciative audience. Despite plasma & lcd TVs, widescreen, dvds, bluray, HD and surround sound at home, cinema attendances have never been higher.

David Archer ● 6018d

Im with you David on this one Its like comparing Chalk and Cheese

Victor Mullins ● 6018d

Disagree chaps, the whole experience of cinema going is outdated which is why all the places got turned into Bingo halls.

G Lord ● 6018d

I used to like going to the cinema up until fairly recently. Nowadays you need a second mortgage to buy a ticket and the majority of people who go aren't interested in watching the film, but are content with talking to each other, throwing popcorn and generally making a nuisance of themselves.It is also true that with some films you don't get the same effect on the small screen (TV) as you do at a cinema.

J Smith ● 6017d

If you think the price of going to a local cinema in west London is exorbitant then I am astonished. A cup of coffee in starbucks or something similar is what I call exorbitant.It is not my experience except for an occasional deviation that people talk instead of watching a film, and usually a fierce sshh achieves silence. To suggest a majority of people make a nuisance is nonsense.As for Mr Lord not appreciating the pleasure of an outing to the flicks, that is also quite alien to my experience of people I know.Ealing very much needs investment in the media and arts so as to help make the town a better place rather than a run down string of pound shops and poor planning ideas coming from the regeneration people in the Council. We need people to invest and spend locally, and to rubbish a cinema is to encourage residents to spend out of the borough.

George Knox ● 6017d

Don't get me wrong, if you enjoy the cinema, go for it.  My point is that most people have a huge stonking TV at home, with many going for the "home cinema" experience (I don't) and the choice of what to watch and when is now down to individual choice rather than what Hollywood or the mass media tell us to watch.In a similar way, records used to be purchased from shops, now they are downloaded, it's just the way things have gone.I do spend as locally as possible, in fact I spend very little out of the borough.  There are some great shops here in Ealing and I'm not short of a few bob so I do my bit :-)Anyway back on topic, I am actually looking forward to it being completed, but like most probably won't use it as there isn't any need or desire to do so.Said it before, it's Dr Lord but you can call me G.

G Lord ● 6017d

Well I don't know where George has been to a cinema but nearly everyone I've been too the majority of people there are mroe intent on using their mobile phones, talkign to each other and throwing popcorn. A loud "Shhhh" does not achieve anything apart from stong language and a threat of a fist in the face!I used to love going to the cinema, the whole experience, but nowadays the cost, poorly behaved people puts me off.Oh, by the way, since moving to Ealing 98% of the time I shop locally as it is a lot cheaper and the produce better than a supermarket.

J Smith ● 6017d

Never had a problem in Richmond and Brentford.

George Knox ● 6017d

So Dr G if you are a medical Dr I am sure you would advocate people getting out and about and relaxing by going to outside entertainments rather than sitting around at home. The more incentives we have to get out an enjoy ourselves perhaps the fewer will be complaing about depression and being prescibed with a load of medication which has doubtful benefits and which cost the NHS too much.And the more we press the council to improve its policy of providing entertainment instead of empty office blocks at vast rents, the more we may encourage people into the borough rather than having the fag of going to say Richmond or beyond.

George Knox ● 6017d

I'm not a medical Doctor and please call me G.What you are saying on this thread is correct, what I am saying is that I probably won't use the place if its ever completed as it is my belief that cinemas have had their day for reasons previously mentioned.You and others say you will, thats great, I wouldn't want to take something away from you that obviously gives you pleasure.What I will do is when someone knocks on my door requesting (or begging for) my vote, this will be a subject that comes up, because that building has, one way or another done nothing for way too long, OK?

G Lord ● 6017d

Thank you, but it's not OK if judging by the tenor of some of your posts on this thread, it might be inferred that you think the building should be knocked down. Then the question arises as to what you think should be there, and what might be said that sways you when you raise the question on your doorstep. Ergo, not OK ftb. Btw why did we get into this doctor business?

George Knox ● 6017d

Btw why did we get into this doctor business? You called me Mr, G is fine.No, I don't think it should be knocked down, I think it should be finished for others to enjoy if they wish, just probably not by me.  I hadn't noticed the entrance to the other (disused) cinema before, its quite ornate really.

G Lord ● 6017d

I'm still curious why your status is important on a website such as this. Was it so important?

George Knox ● 6017d

If that blasted cinema ever gets built, then I'm a Dutchman. Fortunately, I AM a Dutchman, so I'm actually quite optimistic.

Alex Weel ● 6017d

If you go to watch silent films with musical accompaniment at a place in Brentford make sure you know where the exits are as I have heard that the amateur curator set the place on fire.

J Smith ● 6016d

Sounds like the plot of a Horror film.

Peter Chadburn ● 6016d

It may sound like a plot to a horror film but unfortunately in this case it is worse than that - it's true!

J Smith ● 6015d