Bargoed looks set to have a new multiplex cinema after councillors agreed plans for its development.
Caerphilly County Borough Council’s cabinet agreed to move ahead with the plan and a report will now be presented to full council for the final decision.
Earlier this year councillors had agreed to fund the new project, originally started under the Plaid Cymru administration, by borrowing £5million.
Cllr Ken James, cabinet member for regeneration, said: “This is fantastic news for Bargoed and the whole of the Caerphilly county borough. We don’t currently have a multiplex cinema within the county borough and, with a population of over 170,000, it is a much needed leisure facility for our residents.
“We now look forward to the report going before full council and I’m sure the whole community will also welcome this exciting news.
The council has decided to build the cinema itself on the Bargoed retail plateau site and lease it to a national cinema chain after advice from commercial property experts.
The cinema is the second phase of the development, with supermarket Morrisons due to open as part of phase one.
Work on the Morrisons development is due to start soon with planned completion in Autumn 2013.
Negotiations are currently underway and the name of the multi-national operator is due to be announced in the near future
Labour council leader Harry Andrews said: “These are very exciting time for Bargoed. Work on the Morrisons development is well underway with planned completion in Autumn 2013. The cinema and restaurant development is ‘Phase Two’ of the scheme and complements the wider regeneration work which is currently transforming the town centre.”
It really does seem as if Bargoed is waking up.
With the supermarket development, the proposal to use part of the old Woolworth's store as offices for the Council, and this new, probable, new multiplex entertainment centre, could see Bargoed regain its place as a centre of activity in the Valley.
When Bargoed was a thriving centre it contained a number of building/activities which meant that a large number workers came into the town to work, this is now being replicated with the new supermarket, instead of the old emporium and Woolworth's stores, a new cinema complex replacing the old Hanbury Cinema, and the new proposed offices full of workers, replacing the old SWALEC offices which brought a large number of office workers and customers to the town from all over the Valley.
All that remains to be replicated is the old Friday and Saturday open air markets, or, how about a Sunday one, since retailing activity has moved on since the old days.
So in essence no commercial operator foresees a business case for investing in Bargoed. Which was much the case with the original out of town supermarket proposals.
At least a multiplex may offer some use to the public. Unlike the subsidised jobs from the artificially created need for yet more council offices. Curiously we have yet to hear of which offices elsewhere in the Borough will be downscaled or closed or as to why there is a need for new offices and workforce expansion.
The old ploy of pouring public money in to a bottomless pit of ineffectual subsidy seems to have reinvented itself. While we have the obligatory publicly funded jobs and indeed buildings. It is to be hoped that the multiplex itself will be a commercial operation not requiring long term subsidy.
I see nothing at all wrong with the Local Authority investing in its areas infastructure, as in this case, and it is a brilliant idea to consider displacement of council workers from central locations to ` the sticks`, nothing whatsoever wrong with that.
Again, nothing at all wrong with our local authority investing our cash reserves, and new government settlements, in developing and owning commercial sites in the borough which will attract commercial investment and rental income to the Council bank accounts in the future, and employment come to that, Particularly, when it appears those same commercial operators, large, rich, and successful companies, fail to see the prospects for themselves. They have perversely held large swathes of land in their `land banks`, they have sceptically held that land undeveloped, and therefore denied the opportunity for others to create developments, investment, and jobs, and now that a Labour Council has stepped into that process they are to be congratulated not vilified.
The Labour run Caerphilly council are to be congratulated for this re-generation of Bargoed, and, lets hope it will be replicated throughout the borough in time, at last a Council that that will not be held to ransom by big business. Much better too to invest the citizens money in its own areas of developement rather than giving it away to another country to help that country pay its debts.