Published: 6 February, 2014
by DAN CARRIER

INDEPENDENT cinema owners Shortwave have moved to the front of the queue to run a new boutique picture house planned for Kentish Town.

As the New Journal revealed last year, the former North London Polytechnic building in Prince of Wales Road is set to be turned into a cinema with homes built on the roof to pay for the scheme.

An application from developers Redview is currently being considered by the Town Hall for the 1920s red brick building, which until recently housed a branch of Pizza Express. The company says it needs to build a two-storey roof development to allow the cinema plan to go ahead.

It is believed that two other groups, rumoured to be the Everyman Media Group and Soho House, who run the Electric in west London, have been weighing up whether to bid for the space.

But Shortwave, which runs a 52-seat independent cinema in Bermondsey, are front runners. The company told the New Journal they hoped people in Kentish Town would write to the council supporting plans for a cinema. Owner Rob Wray said: “Developers have not chosen a cinema operator yet, but when they do, we would like it to be us.”

The Shortwave founder was once a student at the North London Polytechnic. He said: “Kentish Town will always bring back happy memories for me as I went to college and made life-long friends here. If people in Kentish Town decide they would like to reopen a cinema here, I would love it to be Shortwave.”