Odeon cinema set for Dorchester's Brewery Square (From Dorset Echo)

Odeon cinema set for Dorchester's Brewery Square

8:00am Thursday 9th December 2010 in Local News By Harry Hogger

Dorchester’S Brewery Square is set to welcome a blockbusting new addition.

Cinema giant Odeon has agreed to take open up a cinema at the town centre development, it was announced today.

The state-of-the-art three-screen cinema will take pride of place at the heart of the Brewery Square site and will include a foyer bar.

The cinema will be built as part of phase two of the Brewery Square development, with work on the facility due to start early next year for completion in 2012.

Access will be off Weymouth Avenue opposite the Fairfield car park.

Brewery Square co-director Andrew Wadsworth welcomed the agreement with the largest cinema chain in Europe.

He said: “It’s brilliant news and it’s fantastic for the town to have such a high quality operation.

“Odeon’s decision to operate a cinema at Brewery Square is a great endorsement of this exciting regeneration project.

“We know that Dorchester has for a long time wanted to improve the cultural and entertainment provision and Brewery Square is set to provide this within a high quality, vibrant town centre development.”

The cinema screens will all be fitted out with luxury seating and will also use the latest satellite digital technology.

Odeon Cinemas’ Chief operating officer Roger Harris said: “We very much look forward to playing a key role in the creation of a new cultural entertainment hub for Dorchester. Brewery Square is an ideal location for Odeon and a new, cutting edge digital cinema.

“It will have full digital 3D capability in every screen and our cinema-goers will be able to reap rewards by joining the UK’s leading cinema loyalty programme, Odeon Premiere Club.”

While the first phase of the Brewery Square development saw a number of independent shops open their doors on site, Odeon is the latest big name national company to become involved in phase two, joining the likes of fellow national brands Hobbs, Pizza Express and Café Rouge.

Mr Wadsworth said he hoped the big names would attract more businesses to the development as phase two progresses and still hoped a number of independents would be involved in the second phase.

He said: “If you have got the likes of Odeon, Café Rouge, Hobbs and so on they are all fantastic quality names and it’s how these development works and what generates the success of them.”

Mr Wadsworth said that, while the start of phase two was delayed recently by the collapse of its contracted building firm Rok, everything possible being done to overcome that and he was confident the project would begin early next year.

Colin McDonald, the general manager of the Plaza Cinema in Trinity Street, said the independent venue would not be affected by the new addition.

“As far as I'm concerned it won’t affect us, we have a committed customer base.

“We are modernising our cinema, the third screen will open next week, but we also offer a good personal service. We endeavour to chat with all of our customers.

“We won’t be put out by this, we feel we can offer a more enjoyable experience.”