The company that ran the Catford Mews cinema owed Lewisham Council £387,000 when it entered liquidation, official documents reveal.
Really Local Group (Catford Mews) Ltd also owed staff over £56,000 – a figure that could rise as it does not take into account those who were on zero-hours contracts.
The cinema was a lynchpin of Lewisham Council’s plans to transform the centre of Catford, and opened in a former branch of Poundland in the Catford Centre in 2019.
But the cinema closed in October when its landlord, the Lewisham Council-owned company Catford Regeneration Partnerships Ltd (CRPL), took the building back, with the council saying that the company had run up “significant arrears”.
The closure prompted a bitter dispute between Lewisham and Really Local Group, with the council saying the company had run up £650,000 in arrears over the five years Catford Mews had been open, while Really Local disputed that figure and said it had spent large sums because CPRL had not managed the centre properly.
Lewisham is now hoping to sign a deal with a new company to take on the venue.
A statement of affairs submitted to Companies House shows that Really Local Group (Catford Mews) Ltd owed £2,027,454 at the start of the month, although more than half of this – £1.1 million – was to its parent company, Really Local Group Ltd.
While the company had spent £795,000 on works to the building, its only tangible assets were the £22,000 spent on fixtures and equipment – now assessed as being worth only £2,710.
CRPL, owned by Lewisham Council, was the second biggest creditor, owed £387,745, while HM Revenue & Customs was owed £168,556.
Six staff were owed £56,362 in total – and may only get a fraction of that back. Another ten were on zero-hours contracts and liquidators will have to assess what is owed to them.
Local companies to have lost out include Brockley Brewery, which was owed £2,236, while a Chislehurst-based plumber, Plumbeze, was owed £9,675. A number of film companies were also owed thousands of pounds.
Earlier this month Preston Benson, the Really Local Group founder, said he was hoping to open a new cinema nearby. “We still see a positive future, love our home in the borough of Lewisham, and hope to be back there again for years to come,” he said.
Last year a Really Local Group subsidiary running a cinema in Ealing was also put into liquidation owing nearly £2 million. Another company that ran the Biscuit Factory cinema in Reading is also being wound up, also with debts of £2.2 million.
The sister company that ran the Sidcup Storyteller, which opened less than two years ago, is also being wound up, owing £55,000 to Bexley Council, its landlord. The cinema is still open – and being run by a company set up by Benson – but Bexley is also looking for a new operator.
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