Save Curzon Mayfair

Find out more here: https://www.curzon.com/save-curzon-mayfair/

How can you help?

The landlord has now submitted a planning application to Westminster City Council to seek to undertake works for a new proposed mixed-use venue that would not include The Curzon. We need our supporters to oppose this planning application to help save the Curzon Mayfair for local cinema lovers.

To do this effectively, we need your help to submit an objection to the planning application.

You can do this by logging onto the Westminster planning portal here and clicking the “Make a comment” tab to submit an objection to the planning application reference 23/02081/FULL.

Below is a list of reasons that you can quote to oppose the application. When drafting your response please chose a few from the list below to include in your comment to the Council.

Reasons to object:

- The proposed change of use to convert the iconic Curzon Cinema into a “mixed-use premises” will completely undermine the Listed Building’s future viable use as a conventional cinema for the community, the use for which the building was designed.

- The Curzon Cinema has been designated by Westminster City Council as an Asset of Community Value and the planning application’s change of use proposals will undermine continued community access to a fully publicly accessible conventional cinema with a choice of two screens.

- Government guidance (2012) states it is open to Westminster City Council to decide whether the recent designation of the Curzon as an Asset of Community Value is a material consideration “if an application for change of use is submitted, considering all the circumstances of the case.” The change of use will undermine the basis on which the Asset of Community Value was put forward which was to safeguard the community’s use of the public cinema.

- Curzon has been the long-term operator at its historic Curzon Street home for almost a century but the applicant has failed to engage with Curzon Cinemas in respect of these proposals. Neither is any other alternative established cinema operator associated with these proposals which must cast doubt on the viability of the proposals for the future of the Listed Building.

- The Listed Building was specially designed to Curzon’s specification in the 1960s to function as conventional cinema not as a ‘mixed-use premise’. The proposals will undermine the future continuation of the Listed building as a public cinema for the community, the purpose for which it was designed. The use for which the Listed building was designed is the best use to secure its long-term future.

- The application seeks to reduce the number of seats in the venue far below the current capacity. The current seated capacity is 373 and the proposals will cut the seating to just 288, a reduction of almost 100 seats. This will limit access to the venue by the community and will undermine the use for which the Listed building was original designed by virtue of introducing alternative uses. If the cinema is no longer economically viable this creates a substantial risk of it ceasing operation in the future, also to the detriment of the local community.

- The proposal to create a single screen will make the cinema much less viable as a conventional public cinema for the community. The loss of the second screen will significantly reduce the income stream by halving the number of screenings from six a day to three a day. This has the potential to almost halve revenue as the current second screen contributes almost as much revenue as the main screen. This will inevitably reduce access to a well-used community asset.

- The likely business model resulting from creating a single auditorium with less seating is a much more exclusive venue which ceases to be a conventional cinema open to the whole community.
The Curzon is a major commercial anchor in the designated Central Activities Zone (CAZ) based on the existing model of operation. The reduction in seated capacity in the main auditorium will undermine the continued use of the venue as a West End destination for film premiers which require a sufficiently large capacity for the number of attendees involved.

- The proposals are not required to safeguard the future of the Listed building and are actually likely to be detrimental to its future as a cinema for the community as recognised in the designation of the site as an Asset of Community Value.


We cannot let the landlord end the historic association of Curzon which has been on Curzon Street in Mayfair since 1934 and take the cinema away from the local community and film fans who have enjoyed it for many decades.

Thank you for your support for Curzon at this important time.

Тэги:

#independent_film #curzon_artificial_eye #curzon #artificial_eye #curzon_film

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