YATE Shopping Centre bosses have pleaded with the public to get behind plans for a cinema in the town.

The centre’s management is calling on those people who have been campaigning for such a facility in Yate to support a planning application for a six-screen cinema and a development of new restaurants and shops on the overflow car park.

The plans were lodged with South Gloucestershire Council last month and are expected to be decided early in the New Year.

Shopping centre manager Andrew Lowrey said this is the moment shoppers and local residents had been waiting for and urged them to support the plans for the benefit of the town.

He said: “It is essential that the public get behind this planning application by contacting South Gloucestershire Council and telling them that they want the cinema in Yate.

“A cinema is a key plank of the town’s Community Plan and this is the opportunity that people have been waiting for. At the public consultation earlier this year there was overwhelming backing for the development proposals and now we need to turn that into support.”

He added: “We’ll be pulling out all the stops to ensure that we deliver what the people of Yate want and support plays a critical part in this”.

Thornbury and Yate MP Steve Webb led a 10-year campaign for a cinema operator to open in Yate. Mr Webb has already lent his support to the project.

“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,” he said last month.

If the council gives the go-ahead for the development, work will start in early 2015 and the cinema could be open by the end of the year.

A public consultation on the plans is now open. To comment, go to www.southglos.gov.uk and search planning applications in the Have Your Say section.