Citygate Church, which owns the Grade II Odeon, says the cinema closes in December and plans a church. Have your say by 13 October; the drop-in is 10 October.

The Odeon in Beckenham is expected to close in December, according to the church that owns the building. Citygate Church wants to turn the Grade II listed cinema into a place of worship and community venue.

Citygate has not applied for planning permission yet. It is running a public consultation first, and the survey closes at 5pm on Tuesday 13 October. A drop-in event runs on Saturday 10 October, 10am to 2pm.

What Citygate says

The church has set up a consultation website for the scheme. Its summary of the proposals says:

  • Odeon Cinemas “has made the commercial decision to cease operating from the Beckenham cinema and to terminate its lease”.
  • The cinema “is expected to close in December 2026”.
  • Citygate “owns the freehold of the building”.
  • It is preparing a planning application to Bromley Council to change the use from a cinema to “a place of worship and community venue”.

Some other reports have given the end of November as the closing date. The December date is Citygate’s own. We could not find a statement from Odeon on its website.

Citygate says the plans have already been discussed with Bromley Council at pre-application stage (Citygate consultation website). Because the building is listed, the council will also have to decide a separate listed building consent application for the alterations.

What would change inside

The church lists five main changes (Citygate, our proposals):

  • remove the later dividing walls and bring back one single auditorium
  • take out the fixed, raked cinema seating and level most of the auditorium floor, with new seating still facing the stage
  • upgrade the toilets and add more in the former projection room, which dates from 1978 and 1979
  • put in a lift from the entrance foyer to the first floor, the former dance hall and the balcony
  • add new staircases in the side corridors

It also proposes a programme of external cleaning, repair and restoration. Citygate describes the drawings as “indicative”.

Why Citygate wants the building

Citygate is an independent Protestant church founded in Beckenham in February 1997 with 13 people. Since 2002 or 2003 it has been based in the former town-centre Post Office depot on Rectory Road, directly opposite the Odeon. Its own pages give both years (about Citygate, our proposals).

The church says it has outgrown that building. Some activities, including its playgroup, already meet elsewhere. It also runs Food+, which gives out surplus food to people in need.

The building

The cinema opened as the Regal on 22 September 1930. It was designed by Robert Cromie and included a café and a dance hall. It was split into three screens in 1978 and 1979, and later into six under Odeon (Citygate’s history of the building).

Historic England lists it at Grade II as the “Odeon Cinema and Regal Ballroom”. The list entry notes the Art Deco foyer doors and staircases. It also records that the original ceiling decoration, with coved panels and decorative grilles, survives inside the subdivided screens (Historic England, list entry 1031565).

The building stands in the Beckenham Town Centre Conservation Area, behind the war memorial on the roundabout (Citygate, heritage and setting).

Timeline of the Beckenham Odeon: opened as the Regal on 22 September 1930; split into three screens in 1978 and 1979; listed Grade II in January 1998; petition to keep it as a cinema started 26 September 2026; Citygate drop-in 10 October 2026; consultation survey closes 13 October 2026; cinema expected to close in December 2026 according to Citygate
Graphic by Bromley Online, from Citygate Church's consultation website, Historic England and Change.org.
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The opposition

A Change.org petition, “Keep Beckenham Odeon as a cinema”, started on Saturday 26 September. By the early hours of 30 September it had 6,547 signatures against a goal of 7,500 (Change.org).

Liam Conlon, the MP for Beckenham and Penge, has opened his own survey. It asks residents whether they want the Odeon to stay open and what he should put to Citygate and Odeon “when I meet them next week” (Liam Conlon MP, Action Network).

What the council’s planning policy says

Bromley’s Local Plan treats both a cinema and a place of worship as community facilities. Policy 20 says planning permission will not be granted for the loss of a community facility unless better provision is made somewhere equally accessible, or it can be shown there is no longer a need for it.

It goes further when the change of use needs permission, as this one would. In that case “the lack of need for the specific use class must first be demonstrated” (Bromley Local Plan, Policy 20).

There is a further test for facilities “identified by local communities as having significant value”. For those, alternative uses will only be considered if no buyer exists who would pay a suitable price and keep the existing use. How the council weighs any of this is for the planning application, which has not been submitted.

What it means for you

  • If you want a say on the church plans, fill in Citygate’s survey before 5pm on Tuesday 13 October, or go to the drop-in on Saturday 10 October, 10am to 2pm, at Citygate Church, 22 Rectory Road, BR3 1JA. Registration is on the event page.
  • The formal objection or support stage comes later. Once Citygate submits its applications, they will appear on Bromley Council’s planning register with a consultation period. We will report it when it does. Our Bromley planning applications guide explains how to comment.
  • The MP’s survey is separate from Citygate’s. It is on Action Network.
  • If you hold Odeon tickets or a membership for dates in December, check with Odeon directly. It has not published a closing date that we could find.

Sources