How a new cinema would benefit the neighbourhood
It was announced recently that a company has applied for planning permission to build a cinema complex in my neighbourhood. It is not clear yet whether or not planning permission will be given and quite a lot of protests have been lodged.
Being a cinema buff, I am very much in favour of the project. I live in a suburb of a medium-sized town and the nearest cinema is in the centre of town. Indeed, there are two of them there, a few streets apart. However, it takes me a long time to get there because the bus service to the town is not very regular.
Then there is the fact that one of the cinemas is very old-fashioned. It is very much in need of total refurbishment and the seats are very uncomfortable. It is really not much of a pleasure to go there and, in fact, it does not show films until they have been released elsewhere for several months,
The other cinema is more modern and it is quite comfortable. It is quite good at getting newly released films fairly quickly. However, it is quite small and it is usually very crowded. There always seem to be queues and I really hate queuing. Quite a few times I had queued to get in, only to discover that the cinema was full before I could get to the head of the queue.
I think it would be absolutely marvellous to have a cinema close to where I live. I would go to the cinema much more often if I did not have to get a bus into town every time, I wanted to see a film.
Another good thing about the proposed cinema is that there will to be several screens. This will give a greater choice of film and, if there is a particularly popular film, they will be able to show it on more than one screen, allowing more people to see it as soon as possible.
The better cinema in town is quite expensive, and then, of course, there is the added cost of the bus fare into town. The company that owns the proposed cinema complex has announced that it plans to offer a range of concessionary tickets and off-peak tickets and so I hope it will be cheaper to go to the cinema. I would love to go to the cinema on Saturday mornings and that is bound to be considered off-peak.
I am a student at the local high school and I think that a lot of my friends would like to go to a local cinema. Most of them are interested in films and going to the cinema would be something for us to do, provided it is not too expensive. At the moment, we are often bored.
The problem is that quite a lot of people are against the cinema project. They say that it will bring increased traffic to the area, and that this will cause traffic problems to an area that is currently free of them, unlike the centre of the town. I think that they are exaggerating the extent of this problem, because most people will come to the cinema in the evening after the rush hour, and the complex will have plenty of parking space around it.
The protesters also say that the cinema complex will ruin our quiet suburb by attracting crowds of people from the town. Most of the young people think that the place is far too quiet and they would welcome the film-goers from the town.
We are waiting to hear if the cinema complex will be built. However, I am keeping my fingers crossed!