Fate of the Whiteladies Picture House

The fate of the Whiteladies Picture House is still undecided, the application was deferred and it will be one month before the next meeting. Below is my account of what happened at the Council planning committee, June 27th, 2012. 

Re: application of the Whiteladies Picture house to be converted into a gym and five flats.

The meeting commenced at 3.15pm

Five Councillors were present including the chair; the full committee should have consisted of seven.

There were five planning applications to be considered this day, the Picture house was supposed to be number Four on the agenda but the chair proposed that it be saved to last due to such large interest in the application-that it would give more time for late comers to arrive etc. The committee did not object.

Four and a half hours later the committee came on to the Picture house application. At this point Cllr Martin ejected himself from the committee and came to sit on the side of where the objecting public were. He made a seemingly heart felt objection to the application, which is a turn around as last meeting he voted in favour of the applicant. He then left, leaving the committee with just four members.

The public made there objections one by one, each receiving a round of applause, there was a wide variety of reasons and concerns expressed, including sound levels of a gym, damage to a listed building and concerns on the impact on the local community.

The applicant himself did not make a verbal statement, though his letting agent did.

The planning officer’s recommendation was to grant the applicant permission, but the committee was clearly torn.

The officers stated that the reasons for the application being rejected last time had been addressed and can not be used again as grounds of objection. The main objection to the application last time was that there was no outlined use for the auditorium which is listed and fears of its fate meant the applicant was rejected. Now use of the auditorium as a gym has been presented.

The Auditorium has a D2 licence and therefore does not need planning permission to be converted into a gym. It’s the use of residential units that seem to need permission though there is already one flat present.

It was noted that if made into a gym, it could be reversed back into a cinema, but point was raised that this is incredibly unlikely.

The applicant claims it will restore features of this listed building including the auditorium and outside features.

The officers warned that if the councillors voted NO that they would need grounds of objection other than that of hope for a more favourable applicant.

Two Councillors ignored the planning officer’s recommendations and voted NO against the applicant. One claiming that the listed parts were still at risk, the other simply gave no reason.

The third member and chair were undecided for sometime. Seemingly playing devil’s advocate the 3^rd member jumped in and voted yes to see what happened. His reasons were that the building has been disused for along time and is falling apart. This left the casting vote to the chair.

The chair was still undecided and the final decision was to refer so that the committee had a better chance to look around the premises-to make a more accurate assessment.

The next committee meeting will be in one month.

Simon Bennett