The famous West End cinema

A FIFTEEN million pound refurbishment of a West End cinema has got the green light despite warnings it will transform a cultural institution into a glorified “diner”.

Westminster councillors voted unanimously in favour of plans to create a new Mayfair Curzon cinema where restaurant facilities are merged with screens despite stiff opposition from residents.

Applicant 38 Curzon Lease Ltd, which wants to evict the Curzon chain and run its own independent cinema, said it had to “move with the times”.

An objector, from the Mayfair Neighbourhood Forum and Residents’ Society of Mayfair and St James’s, said: “It is proposed that instead of a separate restaurant the whole cinema will become a diner. With films running at the same time, ­people will eat, drink alcohol, and talk at tables in the auditorium while the film is going on. This ­relegates the film into a more ancillary role.”

“The Curzon Mayfair is Westminster’s landmark resource for important films which require proper uninterrupted viewing conditions.”

The objector said the change of use application could breach city council policies set up to protect cultural assets, and added: “Blockbuster movies premiere in Leicester Square. But smaller films go to Curzon Mayfair. Premieres need a venue that is devoted to film. Not one film promoter will allow a film to premiere in an auditorium that has food, tables and noise.”

The chief executive of Curzon Cinemas Edward Fletcher warned councillors that the cinema “should be protected from radical change” that he said would “harm its heritage”.

Celebrities like Steven Spielberg and A-list actors including Toby Jones, Tilda Swinton, Emily Mortimer and Imogen Poots, have thrown their support behind a campaign to keep the cinemas in the hands of the current operators.

The cinema first opened in 1935 and it is descr-ibed by Historic England as “the finest surviving cinema building of the post-war period”.

The city council listed the cinema as an asset of community value earlier this year alongside Soho’s The Coach and Horses pub and the LGBTQ venue Heaven.

Chief operating officer for 38 Curzon Lease Ltd, Damian Drabble, a veteran with 30 years’ military service in the Middle East, said: “Tonight is not a discussion about who operates the venue. That is a discussion for another time and place.

“For cinemas to flourish in this new post-Covid world, with increased competition from streaming and home entertainment, the cinema experience needs to evolve with the times.”

The company removed plans to ditch one of the two screens following public backlash.

Planning committee chair Cllr Jason Williams said he could see “no material reasons” to refuse the application that objectors claim will turn the iconic post-war cinema into a diner.

West End Cllr Paul Fisher said he feared refusing the application based on who would run the venue would be successfully appealed.

He said he was confident the revised proposal wouldn’t interfere with the Mayfair cinema’s “cultural use” and praised objectors for pressuring the landlord into keeping both screens.