7:27 am, April 30, 2023
Plans to build a Trade Centre Group car supermarket on an ex-cinema site have been delayed because of the ‘current depressed economic conditions’.
Instead, Bailey Family Investments, parent company of the Car Dealer Top 100 used car business, is looking to use the Walsall location for temporary storage, Birmingham Live reports.
When conditions improve, it plans on going ahead with the development.
The cinema opened in 1989 but suffered a fall in trade because of other movie houses that subsequently opened.
It was delivered a final, crushing blow by the pandemic and eventually closed in 2021.
The Bailey group lodged a proposal that year to turn it into a showroom, with the aim of replacing Trade Centre’s smaller Wednesbury site.
Our Google Street View image shows the cinema as it was in April 2011. It has now been demolished.
AP Architecture and Planning, acting as the agent for Bailey, was quoted by Birmingham Live as saying: ‘Due to the current depressed economic conditions, the Bailey Family Investments group…will not be commencing development of the Walsall site any time soon.
‘The group’s current focus is on improving the efficiency of its existing Trade Centre Wales and Trade Centre UK sites and operations, and it does not currently need the additional car sales facility that the Walsall site would provide.
‘However, as soon as economic conditions improve, the group aims to open further retail sites in the Midlands and north of England and will develop the Walsall site at the appropriate time.
‘The group still plans to create over 100 high-quality jobs at the site when it is developed.
‘In the meantime, Bailey Family Investments wishes to utilise the Walsall site for open storage to generate a cash contribution towards its site holding costs.
‘The proposal forming this full planning application is therefore for a temporary change of use of the site to allow it to be used as open storage for a period of three years. No other alterations are proposed.
‘A three-year temporary period would coincide well with the implementation period of [the original application] once approved, and would allow a smooth transition between the temporary use and car sales use.’
