Councillors have backed plans to bring Secret Cinema to Greenwich Peninsula – but the chair of planning had harsh words about the traffic jams that bring bus services to a standstill after events at the nearby O2.
The immersive film show company will move to a 1,500-seat venue close to the London Cable Car for up to ten years. Secret Cinema will be based next door to the 3,000-seat Troubadour Theatre, which was given approval for a similar ten-year stay in January.
Both sites will be built on in the long term by Knight Dragon, the Greenwich Peninsula’s main developer, but for now Secret Cinema has what its executive producer, Ben Hosford, called a “medium-term” home, with an estimated 50 full-time jobs and 80 part-time posts.
Extra conditions were placed on Secret Cinema to monitor its customers’ departure from the venue after neighbours complained about the Thames Path and other routes in the area potentially being blocked.
Secret Cinema will also have to agree to co-ordinate its exit times with Troubadour, the O2 and the Magazine London events venue before it can open. Exit times at Troubadour and Secret Cinema will be staggered.
Councillors were told that Transport for London had agreed that North Greenwich station and the Jubilee Line would be able to cope with all four venues at once, while there would be a traffic management plan put in place for East Parkside, the road which takes most buses away from the station.
Jeremy Fraser, the chair of the planning board, said current arrangements were “unacceptable” with buses regularly trapped when leaving the area after O2 events.
“It’s nearly impossible at the kicking-out time for the O2, because of the hire vehicles, the coaches, and people not knowing where they want to go. It just gets clogged up,” he said.
“You can lose three quarters of an hour on a bus waiting to get out of the O2. So I would be very strong on that concern that we actually, and I will happily say that to Knight Dragon, that we need that to be in force now. At the moment, it’s just unacceptable. You don’t need to be going to something at the O2. You can get trapped there.”
Lillian Dune, a principal planning officer, said she and her colleagues were “confident that we’ve covered off all concerns within the conditions, and that these are enforceable as well”, and that TfL and the council’s highways department were also content too.
While 38 objections were received, no objectors came to the town hall to speak, and the scheme was passed unanimously. Pirates of the Caribbean is planned to be the opening show.
Hosford pledged that Secret Cinema would be a good neighbour: “I want to start by acknowledging how this looks from the outside, from a resident perspective.
An operator arrives, promises to be a good neighbour, and residents are left living with crowds and noise long after opening night.
“If I lived on the riverside, I’d want to know that wasn’t going to be me, and I understand that worry.”
He said the “scheme really matters to us, and how we fit into a neighbourhood matters to me personally”.
“Running a venue well, night after night, is not a sideline for us. It’s core to what we do,” Hosford said, pledging to help “create a genuine cluster of culture on this part of the peninsula”.
“We live in an age where it has never been easier to sit alone on a screen at home. What we make is the opposite of that. We get people off their sofas and into a room together, to have, you know, with friends and strangers alike, to share something live that none of them could have had alone.
“That shared experience matters. It builds connection, and we believe that connection is what makes a place a community rather than just a collection of buildings. That is the spirit in which we want to be part of the peninsula.”
Pressed by Fraser on whether schools could benefit from Secret Cinema’s presence, Hosford said he was unable to pledge free entry to shows but could hold three or four special events each year.
Hosford also said there would be a phone number that neighbours could call and offered to hold regular meetings with residents. “I’m not interested in being here in a way that completely disregards local residents,” he added.
After questioning from Green councillor Leonie Barron about the 20 cycle spaces included in the scheme, Hosford said there would be money to improve wider cycle parking in the area.
Four trees would be taken down as part of the plan, with nine replanted, but Fraser said these should be planted in a local plant to stop them being ripped out again when Knight Dragon finally developed the site.
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