Save the Odeon campaigner TIM ADDYMAN outlines the case for keeping the cinema.

IT'S to be hoped that, in light of last Friday's meeting between York MP Hugh Bayley and the Odeon's regional manager Ian McDonald, the urging of a compromise with council officials is not at the cost of a unique entertainment venue.

The owners say that the council is being unnecessarily obstructive to its plans, the main sticking point being that they want to scrap the last remaining original Odeon sign of its type, because it doesn't fit in with their "re-branded" image.

They say that they have competition from an out-of-town multi-screen complex, competition that has in fact now been there for 14 years.

York planners have welcomed the much-needed refurbishment, and it was in August of last year that they were reported to have agreed to keep the original sign in recognition of its architectural importance. Only later did they do a U-turn on this decision. Why?

The company's refusal to elaborate on future plans does give an insight into how high the York Odeon is on its list of priorities. Lack of investment, according to one former employee, has been going on for many years.

It's true that in the world of big business, nostalgia is not enough to ensure the survival of a cinema. But stamping out the atmosphere of a building for pure profit only leaves us with today's multi-screen fast food equivalent of movie going, vastly over priced, plastic packaged and with no originality.

As our campaign shows, the Odeon is a vital facility to a wide range of people, not just historians. Grandparents take their grandchildren to the same place they saw films when they were young; families with no means of transport find it within easy reach, while local businesses depend on the people it brings to the area.

Public interest in building conservation is on the increase with the popularity of television programmes such as the BBC's Restoration series, where the overall winner was a swimming pool (Barbican campaigners take note!).

A survey carried out by English Heritage in 1999-2000 resulted in more than 30 historic cinemas being listed for the first time. We are lucky at York because the Odeon has been listed Grade II for more than 20 years.

Refurbishments have been carried out to the interior over the years, but this work has involved covering over rather than ripping out. Subsequently, many original features are still in place, though hidden from view.

Call me a cinema anorak by all means but I hope I'm not alone in thinking that giving the owners carte blanche to gut the life out of the building and turn it into a bright shiny featureless box is not the way to go. We have venues like this already on most out-of-town shopping parks and industrial estates.

Updated: 09:40 Thursday, March 04, 2004