Action! Developer Confirms Work is Finally to Start on Ealing's Cinema

St George promise that building will begin this December

There have been many false dawns over the last eight years -( that's how long we have been without a cinema) but work is finally due to start on building Ealing's new cinema - this December.

That's the promise made by the CEO of St George - who are the new developers of the site in central Ealing.

Land Securities had been working on the preparation of the site since 2012 and obtained detailed planning consent for a leisure quarter in the town centre with 75,000 sq ft of retail space anchored by a multi-screen Picturehouse cinema.

The plans have a mix of restaurants, cafes, shops and bars, 161 new homes and a landscaped public square. The cost of the sale has not been disclosed.

In August the site was sold on to St George - the firm behind the Dickens Yard development in Ealing Broadway.

Councillor Julian Bell, leader of Ealing Council, said, "Ealing town centre has been without a cinema for far too long and a great deal of work has been going on behind the scenes to bring it back. This week I had a very productive meeting with the new owner of the site, Tony Pidgley and his team of St George, and I am delighted to say that they told me that construction work should start this December.

"After years of delays some residents may feel that we have heard these kinds of promises before, but we have confidence that St George, who have already delivered more than 300 homes at Dicken's Yard just across the road, will get on with building the cinema and this will not be another false dawn. They are committed to building high-quality developments and I expect the new cinema and cultural quarter to be a wonderful asset to our revitalised town centre."

A spokesperson from St George has confirmed the news, '' St George had a very positive meeting with LB Ealing and we are pleased to confirm that we intend to commence development in December. There is still much to be done to be ready to achieve this, but we are committed to this development and delivering a new cinema, shops, restaurants and homes for Ealing.''

Liberal Democrat Councillor, Jon Ball,  has been involved in the twists and turns from the start, he says St George should commit to an opening date, ' "I hope that meaningful work on the cinema site will start in December, but that is merely the next step in this saga. What the people of Ealing want is to have a cinema open again. St George have a terrible record at the Dickens Yard site across the road of concentrating on the luxury flats and putting off everything else until the end of the scheme, in that case leaving dozens of shop units empty. St George must give a clear opening date for the new cinema in order to prove that they're not going to pull exactly the same trick on this side of the road and leave the cinema closed until all the flats are sold."

Land Securities had originally proposed that the 8 screens, 1000 seats cinema operated by Picturehouse would open in 2018.

Ealing Today asked whether this was still the plan - a spokesperson from St George said, ''We are unable to provide further detail at this stage but will do so as soon as we can.''

Computer illustration of project

6 October 2016 (updated)