New car park for Preston city centre on fire-wrecked Odeon Cinema site while plans are drawn up for long-term future

A blaze tore through the Church Street premises in the city centre back in May, wrecking a block which also used to be home to the defunct Evoke and Tokyo Jo’s nightclubs.

The rear of the properties was largely flattened for safety reasons in the wake of the fire, but a proposal to completely clear the rest of the plot - including the art deco façade of the former cinema - has been scrapped while it is decided how the site will be used in future.

Preston City Council planning officers had raised concerns that a total clearance - which had attracted 34 public objections - would have had an “unacceptable impact” on the nearby Winckley Square and Market Place conservation areas.

Lancashire County Council’s historic environment team also warned that such a move would create “a large, open vista from Church Street which would obliterate the visual aspects of the historic grain”.

County Hall recommended that the terracotta cinema frontage - as a “significant feature” which reflected the 1920s era in which it was built - should be retained either for incorporation into a replacement building or for “careful dismantling or reconstruction” as part of the redevelopment of the site.

To that end, the city council’s planning committee gave the go-ahead to an amended application for the partial demolition of other remaining parts of the site, but with the building frontages to be left intact. Parts of the walls beyond the façades will also be kept in place to provide the necessary support.

Councillors also approved the creation of a 116-space car park at the rear of the plot - a use which goes against city planning policy, but which was recommended for approval due to the “exceptional circumstances” of how the site came to be in its current state.

The application - by the Rigby Group Limited - had originally sought a three-year permission for the car park, but planning officers concluded that that was “akin to being permanent” and so suggested to the committee that it should limit the timeframe to two years instead.

Papers presented to members noted that the temporary facility would provide a level of “natural surveillance” which would reduce the risk to the site, which has been the subject of several fires this year.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the meeting at which the plans were approved, planning committee member David Borrow, said that the cross-party group would have to be “quite strict” over the time limit set on the car park - while allowing the applicant a reasonable amount of time to come up with a permanent use for the site.

“It takes so long to bring plans forward, [so] a car park will secure the site and make it safer. The danger of that is if two years becomes four years or ten years,” said Cllr Borrow.

The land lies in the Stoneygate area of Preston, which is the subject of plans for an “urban village” of up to 1,600 residential and commercial properties.

The city's Odeon Cinema closed in 1992, while the Evoke nightclub fell silent in 2020. Two other retail premises in the block - a takeaway and a betting shop - both closed in May this year.