Thousands being spent turning former Stafford cinema into new music venue

The old building formerly occupied by Stafford Cinema has been shut since November last year despite efforts to revive its fortune.

Now a team led by businessman Aaron Bunning have started renovation work with a view to operate a music venue which will be called Apollo Stafford in a nod to when the site was known as Apollo Cinema between 1988 and 2014.

The first event room is due to to be up and running by spring. There are also plans for comedy, poetry reading and arts and culture bookings.

Mr Bunning, 38, also a musician, said that after the cinema's closure the building's owner approached him about taking the plan forward to create a new hub for music fans who will be served popcorn in recognition of the past.

"I've had the idea of creating a music venue for years now all of a sudden it looks like it's going to come off," said Mr Bunning.

""We have substantial work to do and we've got to the plans sign off by the council. We all have experience in music venues, running events and also putting on bands and performing.

"We gave been preparing the floor in one of the rooms. We are taking the stairs out and we're deciding where the bar is going to be. There is also a massive stage area to deal with."

The team has lodged an application with Stafford Borough Council for funding and has already installed a sound desk and is undertaking building repairs.

While the former cinema on the Grapes corner had three screens, the plan is to focus on a single room and eventually build capacity for 900 people.

Mr Bunning said: "I was in a touring band and I did a music production in Munich. My grandad was ill and I returned to Stafford to look after him, he's recovered thankfully. I realised too that there wasn't any kind of live music going on in the town.

"I thought Stafford really needs something like this. There's a lot of music fans here and it would also give local bands and singers somewhere to hone their talent and support homegrown talent.

"It's going to need hundreds of thousands of pounds in investment. It's in a good location. The train station is nearby, multi-storey car parks and hotels in the town," he added.

Owner Sam Lavington had hoped to keep showing films after the cinema closed twice in two years.

The struggling three-screen cinema, in Newport Road, was left with an uncertain future when it closed at the end of 2017, competing with a new Odeon Luxe complex being built just yards away in Bridge Street as part of the new Riverside development. At the time time the previous operator blamed issues with the building and funds.

It was opened as a cinema in 1936 by Odeon Theatres and after a succession of owners over the decades was taken on by Stafford Cinema in October 2019, eight months after it closed after being saved the first time round by AJH Cinema in April 2018.