It seems like the humble game of bingo cannot help but court controversy – even in it’s afterlife. Take the recent case of one former Gala Bingo hall in Birmingham. According to local press reports, the former Gala Bingo and Kingsway Cinema had been due to turn into a restaurant and banqueting venue.
But it seems to have been a move that has angered local councillor Martin Mullaney, with Cllr Mullaney writing to Birmingham City Council planners slamming the plans, which he says would bring traffic chaos to the area due to the club’s high street location.
“The planning application anticipates 300 dinners, plus 400 guests using the new banqueting hall for weddings on the new first floor at the weekend. Where are they all going to park? There is a complete lack of parking in the area and this will cause mayhem,” he says.
“Combined with the complete lack of parking, this facility will make the traffic congestion even worse for Kings Heath. The traffic report tries to compare the use of the new facility with the previous Bingo Hall. Most of the people who used the Bingo Hall were pensioners and used the bus,” says Cllr Mullaney. “The people who will use the wedding venue will come by car.”
Although the plans submitted to the council do not specifically claim the Banqueting Hall will function solely as a ‘wedding venue’, and indeed are more than a little hazy when it comes to the specifics of what type of restaurant they anticipate to open, the plans indicate the former Gala Bingo club to take a similar direction to a former Mecca Bingo Hall in Manchester. That £1m transformation led to the Nawaab restaurant in Manchester, which offers an all you can eat Indian Buffet at £12 a head and has been labelled a massive success.
But a report commissioned about the area suggested that inadequate parking was a large concern, but that like a bingo hall, the use of coach services would help to ease the problems detailed by Cllr Mullaney, saying “Bingo halls are known to generate coach trips. The banqueting centre would be no different and adequate facilities can be provided adjacent to the venue.”
The hall used to be a cinema, before turning into a Gala Bingo Hall in 1982. It was closed in 2007, during a time when many bingo operators began shutting up shops in response to the smoking ban and beginning of difficult economic conditions on attendance.
