We have now had the two public displays regarding developments in Trowbridge, one from Prorsus regarding the Bowyers site and the other from Legal and General on St Stephen’s Place, specifically of their plans for cinema complexes.

We now know Cineworld is committed to the Bowyers site and Odeon has been signed up for the St Stephen’s Place development. They require serious consideration by the planners and also by the public.

It’s all very well asking Trowbridge people to support a cinema via an online petition, but Legal and General should be careful in creating www.trowbridgecinema.co.uk when a rival development is justified in appealing to the populus too.

From my 20 years experience of working in the film industry, I have assessed what is on offer and have a few issues.

The Cineworld site is 34,000sq ft, eight screens with a total 1,442 seats. This means it will even have a much bigger screen than the Odeon Bath (in fact, three super- large screens) and suits the West Wiltshire demographic.

Now to the Odeon – it seems from what we are told it’s going to be 23,000 sq ft offering anything between 700-800 seats maximum over eight screens, in what appears to be a miniplex.

If you divide eight screens into the figure of 800 seats its going to be an average of just 100 seats per auditorium. Even assuming there are two large screens of 200 seats, what is left will result in very small screens.

I remember the days of the Europa Cinemas on top of the multi-storey car park. I thought we were trying to get away from that model.

I consider it a woeful disgrace that an cinema of this size has even been suggested and I am surprised Odeon has put its name to it.

It is a serious case of a new cinema being underseated for a large underscreened area of five towns.

It would appear the total seating for the Odeon has been arrived at and concluded for the population of Trowbridge only. This is a major mistake because this must be a cinema for Trowbridge, Bradford on Avon, Warminster, Westbury, Melksham, and also Frome and Devizes and its 150,000 minimum catchment.

Quite apart from the fact that parking will be a problem in a holiday date in the current multi-storey car park, anybody who goes to a film at the Odeon will look at the screen sizes and will say to themselves ‘let’s go back to the Bath or Bristol multiplexes’. They will not be impressed.

I tried to use the existing multi-storey car park four times last week when the kids were on holiday and each day it was packed with workers and shoppers’ cars. It makes me wonder, what with the 99-year covenant on it, how Legal and General intends to change the current two-hour and 24-hour restrictions to suit the cinema complex and workers’ needs and its future charging policy on the extra 111 spaces it proposes, spliced between the cinema and the hotel.

Personally, if I go to the pictures and part with my money, I want the big- screen experience like London cinemagoers get.

As for the car parking, the Bowyers site will have the edge with 550-plus free 24-hour car parking.

I find what is proposed for the Odeon cinema on St Stephen’s Place as an insult to the people of Trowbridge and west Wiltshire who have waited 30 years and deserve better. I suggest they go back to the drawing board before they submit their plans to the council.

I have to say the Bowyers Cineworld design is better by a mile and it will be an absolute travesty in this time of economic uncertainty if it is turned down, especially when at least 400 jobs will be created as a result across the entire development.

Mike Baxter, Frome Road, Trowbridge.