REEL Cinema officially opened its doors yesterday evening as the towns leaders and politicians cut the film strip ribbon.
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00:00 When we started off on this journey, for residents of Burnley it was 17 years ago, but for us
00:06 it was really 5 years ago. We did a lot of work and we understood the model of a cinema
00:11 and how you should be integrating it into the town centre and what that does is that
00:16 a lot of town centres are dying but Burnley isn't dying as a town centre and the reason
00:20 is that we're diversifying the offer and having a cinema at the heart of the town centre diversifies
00:24 the offer and as you can see that with the cinema being in the town centre we've attracted
00:30 leading brands to the town centre, Nando's, Starbucks, the Icaro Lounge, Heavenly Desserts
00:36 and the fifth brand which I can't name today which is also coming to the town centre very
00:40 soon and that's the importance of having the cinema in the town centre and not only a normal
00:45 cinema but a state of the art cinema which is the envy of many a towns and places. We've
00:49 had a huge upgrade on the projectors so the projectors now later projectors were the best
00:53 digital sound at the moat as well so it gives you a crystal clear cinema experience. We've
01:00 upgraded the seats again so obviously the seats are even better than the ones we had
01:04 in Burnley and we've also changed what used to be the VRP which is now called the Real
01:08 Lounge which now has a surface instead of the recliners. Absolutely delighted, first
01:14 of all to say we're delighted that we won the project and got it off the ground and
01:18 for me personally it was really important because it was one of the first decisions
01:21 I had to make as leader, get all of the members on board and really make it a reality so to
01:26 be standing here today with the cinema open, the other units have already opened and are
01:32 going to be opening shortly, it's absolutely fantastic because it adds to the offer that
01:35 we've got here in Burnley for the students, for the community, for all the residents and
01:39 any visitors as well. I mean you look at something of this scale, you can't achieve it if you
01:43 fall into your silos, fall into your parties and this is a perfect example of if we all
01:48 break those down and go we're all Burnley first, politics second, what can we do and
01:53 here it is. Independence are the future as well, we've just got to remember one thing
01:57 that the big brands and the big conglomerates are out there but they're only interested
02:02 in profit, the independents really add another dimension to the whole sector which is fantastic
02:08 and more important in the current climate as well because what we also want to see is
02:13 the entrepreneurs succeed throughout the country. We have obviously always been the heart of
02:17 the community and obviously all the cinemas that you have in a main town centre is obviously
02:22 a nice little hub for people to meet. Obviously now we've got Nando's next door to us, we've
02:27 got the Heavenly Desserts, we've also got the Aquarela Lounge, it gives somewhere to
02:32 kind of come and have a eat, a door where you can come and eat, you can come have a
02:36 fun night out and then obviously enjoy the cinema as well so it's the best of both worlds
02:40 really. Having it right here in the middle of the town centre, closer to the community,
02:44 the impact of that is it diversifies the offer that we have in Burnley Town Centre so people
02:49 coming into the town centre increases football so it has an impact on other aspects of visiting
02:55 Burnley Town Centre so it helps everyone. 20 years ago people said this could happen,
03:01 will it happen and now we've got there, we've got UCLan expanding at one end, Burnley College
03:06 still growing, Town to Turf at the other, it's a watch this space and we're limited
03:11 only by what we can think of, that's the limit to our ambition and if we can keep being
03:16 really ambitious then we keep making Burnley the best place in East Lancashire and actually
03:21 all across the county to come, whether you're coming for university, coming to move house,
03:25 coming to raise your family, this is the place.