{"id":796732,"date":"2026-10-09T06:20:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:20:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796732\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T06:20:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:20:29","slug":"group-guarding-derelict-bridgwater-cinema-told-to-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/796732\/","title":{"rendered":"Group ‘guarding’ derelict Bridgwater cinema told to leave"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last companies to operate in the Art Deco building before its closure were Scott Cinemas and Mecca Bingo.<\/p>\n

In June, Somerset Council gave the current owner a formal notice to make the site safe.<\/a> <\/p>\n

At the time, the council said: “We have made a number of attempts to contact the owner, but have not yet received a response.”<\/p>\n

Dean and his fellow occupiers claimed that work was not completed, and any emergency renovations were carried out by themselves.<\/p>\n

Bridgwater History and Civic Society, which supports the occupiers, sent a letter to the court ahead of the hearing. <\/p>\n

In it, member Rodney Coate said: “It would be a great shame, and a historic loss to the town, if an eviction order is granted today, with the almost certain result that, without the current responsible occupier, vandals will enter the building and set fire to it.”<\/p>\n

He added that the occupier “is not a homeless person” but “has decided to take on the role of interim caretaker to try and save the building so that a future restoration and community use can be considered”.<\/p>\n

However, the judge said: “I have no choice but to give the possession order to the claimants.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last companies to operate in the Art Deco building before its closure were Scott Cinemas and Mecca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}