CINEMA operator Vue has signed up to run a complex within the proposed £48-million Tropicana scheme in Weston-super-Mare.

Vue bosses want to create an ultra-modern, eight-screen cinema within the seafront leisure attraction if the Lifestation@Tropicana scheme is given the go-ahead. It would be equipped with the latest projection and audiovisual technologies.

The award-winning firm operates 62 multiplexes with 134,413 seats, which attract more than 32 million customers every year, including one at Cribbs Causeway and another at Longwell Green.

Vue's director of construction and development, Geoff Moore, said: "I have been working on this Weston project for the past four years, so it has been a long time in the making and hopefully it will go ahead.

"It is a great site and is well located for the people of Weston, who usually have to travel to Bristol for a good cinema.

"Our cinema will give them what they deserve and the whole site looks fantastic. We will have eight screens with around 1,000 seats.

"We are planning to introduce superior seats to Cribbs Causeway, big leather armchairs, as well as beanbags for the kids.

"The Weston Vue cinema will have all this as well.

"There will be bars within the complex and subject to licensing, people should be able to buy alcoholic drinks and taken them into the cinema."

Developer Henry Boot will find out on October 2 if the multi-million- pound regeneration of the seafront site can go ahead, creating 500 jobs.

If approved work would start this winter and the first operators would open at the site from spring 2010 and the complex should be complete by that summer.

The scheme will provide a 96-bed hotel, water park, 20-lane bowling alley, restaurants and retail units.

Lemur Leisure, which has traded as Splashdown Leisure Pool in Poole for the past 15 years, has been lined up to run the water park, offering a range of slides and attractions.

AMF Bowling, based in Dolphin Square, Weston, will relocate to the new Tropicana and Whitbread will run the hotel aspect.

Food outlets Pizza Express and Nandos have also been confirmed for the site.

Henry Boot says Weston is lacking the facilities it needs to regain its place as the premier resort in the South West but it believes Lifestation@Tropicana will send strong signals to the commercial market that will help secure further national investment in the town.

Craig Mathias, of Henry Boot Developments, said: "We have been able to produce a development which crucially meets the council's intention of rejuvenating the old swimming pool in a commercially viable and all-year- round facility with no cost to the taxpayer.

"More importantly we have consulted widely with local people and have been able to respond positively over issues such as the height and Beach Lawns."

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