The new Scala Cinema and Arts Centre opened its doors in February 2009 after the old cinema, which had been showing films on Prestatyn high street for 100 years, closed its doors and was demolished.
‘Friends of the Scala’ was set up when the old venue closed. The community worked closely with the authorities to rebuild the cinema.
The building, which is Wales’ first all-digital, independent two-screen cinema and includes a media training suite, is owned by the council and run by a trust whose members were recruited from the community.
The Welsh Assembly government put £1.5m into the project. The local town council borrowed £1m over 25 years to make sure the development happened. This was the first time in Wales that a town council had borrowed this level of funding to secure a project in its town.
The councillors were only prepared do this because they were confident that the Scala was needed by the town and that their decision had the full backing of the community.
The main aim of the project was to help regenerate the high street by giving people a reason to visit the town. A number of small businesses in the high street are benefitting directly from the 100,000 plus people who visited the venue in the past twelve months.
Scala Cinema and Art Centre won the Social and Community category of the Wales Action for Market Towns Awards
Lead organisation: Church Stretton
A collaborative community project, combining local, voluntary expertise with professional skills, has made the heritage of this beautiful market town come alive for both residents and visitors. This has helped to reinforce local
community identity and civic pride and to boost the local tourism economy.
The project came out of the Better Welcome Programme, run by Advantage West Midlands to help market towns improve what they had to offer visitors. Workshops with local community stakeholders and a visitor survey identified the lack of heritage information in this historic town, which has no museum.
After more consultation, the town council initiated the Heritage Project. A series of 22 plaques and panels – attached to historic town centre buildings – would tell the story of Church Stretton from pre-history to the present day.
ENVIRONMENT & CULTURE 07
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