The Scoop

Walthamstow cinema campaigners push for happy ending

Darryl Chamberlain | Wednesday 4 May, 2011 16:33

Campaigners hoping to save Walthamstow’s long-closed cinema are hoping Waltham Forest councillors will back their plan to buy the building and start showing films there again.

The EMD cinema has lain empty for eight years, and a planning committee will decide later this month whether a religious group can turn it into a church.

But campaigners have set up the Waltham Forest Cinema Trust, with the aim of buying the premises from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

As a not-for-profit organisation, it would be eligible for grants to restore the building, which opened in 1930 as London’s first Granada cinema.

The site has been used as a cinema since 1896, and Alfred Hitchcock, who grew up in nearby Leytonstone, is believed to have watched films there. An artists’ impression released by campaigners last year shows a reopened cinema named after the legendary director.

Former local MP Neil Gerrard is chairing the trust, which hopes to persuade Waltham Forest councillors that the building has a viable future as a cinema. They cite the Soho Theatre – which opened a decade ago thanks to lottery money and private housing and business development – as an example to follow.

Gerrard said: “The cinema was originally built to inspire and benefit the entire community. The Trust’s plans are entirely in keeping with this legacy, and will restore this building to its former glory.”

In February, squatters broke into the building and tried to hold a rave. Gerrard’s successor as Walthamstow MP, Stella Creasy, entered the cinema and took photos of the damage – but then found herself accused of trespass by UCKG.

Councillors will decide the future of the building at a meeting on 18 May.

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