Bristol's first purpose-built cinema, a rare listed survivor from the glory days of cinema architecture, looks doomed to become a leisure centre, after being sold by the ABC-Odeon chain with a covenant which ensures that the building can never be used as a cinema again.
It will share the fate of hundreds of former palatial movie theatres, once sumptuous buildings open to anyone for the price of a cinema ticket.
In the 1920s, operators vied to outdo one another in splendour, with glittering bars and tearooms, auditoriums equipped with spectacular lighting effects and vast electric organs that sank into a pit when the show began. The buildings may survive, but have been converted into pubs, churches, carpet storerooms and office equipment stores. The communities they once served are left with no alternative to a long trek to an out of town multiplex.
In Bristol the news that their cherished cinema will never show films again has dismayed local campaigners who fought to save the ABC cinema on Whiteladies Road. It is still open, but is due to close at the end of the year. Locals, convinced it is still viable, had hoped to see it taken over by an independent operator.
"This is an interesting, much loved building, still being used for the purpose it was designed for when it opened in 1921, and heavily used by local people," said Hattie Appleby, one of the campaigners who have launched a Keep Cinema Local campaign to alert other communities to the threat. "To discover that it has been sold with this covenant is just a tragedy."
The ABC was listed by English Heritage two years ago to save it from the threat of demolition, but there is no statutory power to preserve it in cinema use - unlike theatres, which can have change of use only after a public inquiry.
The Bristol cinema was listed as English Heritage launched a national survey to find the remaining gems.
Many cinemas which were saved by conversion into bingo halls are now in danger again as the game becomes less popular. Ironically, the new threat to local cinemas comes from the renewed popularity of cinemagoing. The fate of the Bristol cinema seems to have been sealed by last year's merger between the ABC and Odeon chains. The group does not see the future in small local cinemas, on tight inner city sites, which cannot be expanded into multi-screen complexes and often have little or no parking.
It has emerged that restrictive covenants such as the Bristol one, intended to protect the chains from potential local competition, have become standard in disposing of local cinemas.
Although the Odeon group, which since last year's merger now includes ABC, refused to discuss such contracts, the developer who has bought the Bristol site has already bought eight other former cinemas from the group, all with restrictive covenants.
Richard Gray, chairman of the Cinema Theatres Association, which campaigns nationally for the preservation of both the buildings and their cinema use, is alarmed at the trend.
"The right of the chains to impose such a covenant has never been challenged in law, and we would welcome a test case," Mr Gray said.
The listed former ABC cinema at Walthamstow, east London, and another at Gravesend have been sold to an Asian businessman with a covenant barring him from showing anything except Asian films.
These cinemas have been enthusiastically supported, but report that their audiences would also like to see a wider range of films. Film societies have approached them to show other films, but the covenant forbids it.
Screen suppliers
ABC 58 sites (180 screens)
UGC 36 sites (312)
Cine-UK 13 sites (146)
Odeon 79 sites (415)
Showcase 16 sites (221)
UCI 31 sites (320)
Warner Village 28 sites (200)
Small chains 55 sites (170)
Independents 376 sites (794)
Source: BFI handbook 2001 (before ABC/Odeon merger)
