Derbyshire cinema plan shelved after scheme becomes unaffordable for the council and developers

This is despite the project, for Matlock’s market hall in Bakewell Road, being set to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in Government grant funding.

Derbyshire Dales District Council officers and consultants hired by the authority for £8,000 found that no version of the cinema and cafe scheme could be delivered in the current “economic climate”.

As such, councillors were advised to defer any further work on the scheme for 18 months, with the hope that economic conditions could improve and allow the project to progress. This brings a halt to 10 years of community work on the project and five years of active council work on the scheme.

Councillors agreed to follow this advice but also to continue with improvements around the site in the meantime, to use up some of the Government funding which has a tight spending deadline.

Those improvements will include seating and lighting around the bus station area, better waiting areas for bus and taxi users, tree planting, clearing shrubbery, a new bus layby and window openings in the market hall.

The council has a budget of £1.3 million for the project, which included a cinema, cafe, community room and public area improvements in Bakewell Road. However, pitches from developers resulted in bids of £1.47 million and £2 million, and both had flaws.

Councillors agreed in July to assess options for the project, including re-tendering for a third time, reducing the scheme to just the cinema and reducing the scheme to the cinema and a smaller cafe design with the full public area improvements.

Council officers wrote: “On balance, following consideration of the updated economic and financial assessment, current economic climate and review by the corporate leadership team, the scheme is unfortunately not considered affordable/deliverable at this point.

“It is therefore with regret that the view reached is that the proposed conversion of the former market hall comprising a two-screen cinema and food and beverage unit be deferred with a review of the position to be undertaken in approximately 18 months’ time should economic conditions improve.”

Giles Dann, the council’s regeneration manager, told a meeting on Thursday night (December 14): “Despite every effort, the challenges we have had with the project to date have unfortunately meant that the delivery of the scheme is now compromised.” He said the council has already spent or committed £103,383 to the project on the “stark and unwelcoming” site.

The council is set to receive £868,737 in Government funding for the project and this has a tight deadline to be spent – the end of March 2025. As a result, the council is to continue with some of the surrounding public improvements, at a cost of between £250,000-£350,000 from Government funding.

Meanwhile, the council will put out a call for projects, with a deadline of the end of January, for the remaining half a million pounds of Government funding, with Matlock and the district’s other three market towns being a priority.

Cllr Gareth Gee said: “Something is telling us it is not the right time or place to be spending money on this project, akin to making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and I think Matlock deserves something better in the future. I don’t want this grant money to be wasted. I can see all this money being lost. I think we can spend it better by putting it out into smaller projects.”

Cllr Roger Shelley said there was a “serious risk that we will have to return half a million pounds to the Government”. Cllr Sue Hobson, leader of the Conservative Group, said her party’s previous administration was committed to the scheme and disappointed not to see it go ahead.

Mr Dann said the council went to tender after the impact of Covdi, Brexit, inflation, construction and resource delays, saying: “So when we went to tender we probably went out to tender at one of the worst times we could have done. This has meant we have not been able to deliver a scheme as we wanted to.” He added: “We have to be realistic about what we can deliver.”

Cllr Peter O’Brien said the scheme should be widened to provide a scheme which may earn the backing of the incoming East Midlands Combined Authority, with the current plan “unlikely” to be delivered, even in 18 months’ time.

This was rejected following a vote, which leader Cllr Steve Flitter said would have “killed the project, dead and buried”.