YATE Town Council has lent its support to plans for a six-screen cinema in the town.

Councillors have agreed to ‘strongly support’ a planning application for the cinema and six new restaurants and retail units to be built on land adjacent to the overflow car park on Link Road.

The £12million development has been drawn up by Yate Shopping Centre owners Crestbridge Corporate Trustees in a bid to provide more facilities and create a night time economy in the town. It follows years of campaigning by local residents for a cinema to give people in Yate, particularly teenagers, something to do in the evenings and at weekends.

Cllr John Davis, a member of the town council’s planning committee, said: "This is something the town has been trying to get for a long time.

“We don’t have the final say, but we hope the planners will find a way to make the cinema happen."

The council said it strongly supports the application subject to a number of changes. It wants consideration to be given to a historical commitment of the Town Centre Strategy group of linking Ridgewood to the town centre via an existing woodland which the current scheme precludes.

Councillors also want a condition added to the planning application to provide a footbridge over the river to the southwest of the cinema.

They have also requested changes are made in the design of the outside facade on the cinema complex, which they say is too similar to the frontage of the Marks and Spencer Simply Food store opposite.

The proposal has also received the backing of long-term cinema campaigner Thornbury and Yate MP Steve Webb.

Mr Webb said: “It is very exciting news after years of campaigning to get to the concrete stage of a planning application with cinema and retail operators lined up.

“We have done many surveys and young people always ask for a cinema so to play a part in delivering that is fantastic.”

Yate Shopping Centre manager Andrew Lowrey said: “Yate has been promised a cinema for many years and I am being asked daily what’s happening about the plans.

“This is a key plank of the town’s Community Plan and is a major commitment for the centre owners. It is a £12million investment, creating up to 250 jobs when fully occupied and a further 150 during construction.”