Ashford Borough Council is leading plans to return the long-empty High Street building — once home to a cinema and bingo hall — to arts and community use.
The former Odeon and Mecca Bingo building has stood empty on Ashford High Street long enough. Now the borough council says it’s actively pushing forward plans to bring it back into use as a cultural venue — and crucially, it’s the council driving this, not a private developer looking to flip the site for flats or a chain restaurant.
The building has done its time as both a cinema and a bingo hall, and the council’s aim is to return it to something along those lines — arts, community activity, that sort of thing — rather than flog it off or let it carry on gathering dust.
No costs. No timescales. No design details — at least not yet.
But the direction is clear enough. By describing this as a council-led project that has moved beyond early thinking, Ashford Borough Council is signalling something real is in motion. Whether that means a theatre, a music venue, a community arts space, or some combination, nobody’s saying publicly just yet.
Ashford town centre, like plenty of high streets across Kent, has had its share of change over the years — not all of it welcome. A building this size, this visible, sitting idle does nothing for the place. Getting it open and busy again would mean something.
Further details are expected as the project develops.
Ashford council moves forward with plans to reopen former Odeon and Mecca Bingo as cultural venue Quiz
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