PLANS to convert a former cinema site in Bournemouth town centre into flats with additional floors added to the top of the building have been described as “top heavy and visually discordant”.
Libra Homes has submitted detailed proposals to redevelop the ex-Odeon Cinema building in Westover Road.
Outline approval was granted back in 2020 after two previous schemes failed.
The reserved matters application has attracted comments from the Bournemouth Civic Society, which says the latest designs include up to four extra floors of flats above the entrance on the Westover Road side of the building compared to three in the outline documents.
The society, an established heritage and conservation group, has called for the application to be deferred to allow further “discussion and improvement” of the plans.
A statement for Bournemouth Civic Society said: “While the society accepts that the conversion of the existing building into flats may be the only economic [option], we feel strongly that a four-storey extension in modernist style would create a top-heavy and visually discordant connection with the well-designed neo classical structure of the front façade.
“It is our opinion that if such a development took place, any benign aesthetic coordination between the two parts of the building would not be possible.”
The society has suggested that one storey should be removed from the Westover Road façade.
It also suggested changes to the window designs on the upper floors to mitigate the “jarring impact of the austere modernist design on the neo-classical structure below”.
As reported, the site has been put up for sale through Goadsby.
The listing is seeking offers in excess of £5.25m for the “extensive redevelopment opportunity”.
The outline plans are for 64 apartments with 1,149 square meters of commercial space on the ground floor. The proposal also includes 66 car parking spaces despite council policy stating that none would be required in the town centre location.
The cinema was first built in 1929 and run as The Regent Cinema before being renamed the Gaumount in 1949.
It became an Odeon in the 1980s before the curtain came down on screenings in February 2017 following the opening of the new facility in the BH2 leisure complex on the other side of the Lower Gardens.
The reserved matters application is still being considered by BCP Council planning officers.
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