News

Development Partner for Leisure Development

Source: Widnes Waterfront

A major leisure development featuring a cinema and an ice rink is coming to Widnes, after Widnes Regeneration Ltd was selected as development partner for the £10m project.
The company, a partnership between Halton Borough Council and St. Modwen Properties, has signed up the rapidly-expanding Loughborough-based cinema chain Reel Cinemas to operate a five-screen cinema and Leisure Living Ltd to open an ice rink - ‘Blue Ice’ - on Venture Fields. Reel’s stand-alone cinema will bring the touch of classical elegance - its high quality trademark - to this exciting development in a town which used to be home to ten picture palaces in the heyday of cinema. Widnes has been without a cinema since the Empire closed its doors for the last time in the 1970s. Chairman of Reel Cinemas, Mr K C Suri, and Gordon Kirk, General Manager of Leisure Living, were on hand to mark the signing of the agreement with both Halton Borough Council and St Modwen Properties.
St Modwen has carefully put together a leisure package which will appeal to the whole family and as well as securing the cinema and ice rink, is currently pursing interest from a wide range of operators including those of bowling, family restaurants, pubs, children’s play areas and climbing walls. Cllr Tony McDermott, Leader of Halton Borough Council, is delighted with the announcement: “A wish come true. That is the only way I can describe this exciting leisure development.”
Chairman of St. Modwen Properties, Anthony Glossop, commented, “Our team has done a great job in securing Reel Cinemas and is now focused on consolidating interest in the balance of the site. When Widnes Regeneration was formed in 1999 we went to the market for leisure activities and received poor response. The current, very different, reaction shows how far Widnes has come in the intervening time and how much Widnes Regeneration has helped in that transformation.”

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