Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council held a special town council meeting this evening. The only thing to be discussed on the agenda was a confidential property matter. The town council say on their website ‘Abingdon Town Council has been negotiating with the Abbey Cinema regarding a new lease for the cinema for some time.
Recently the Cinema submitted a proposal for a new lease which is substantially different than that which we have been negotiating on.
The Council meeting on Thursday 25 August has been called so we can give matters our speedy consideration.’
On the other hand, the Abbey Cinema has said
‘The current situation is that both we and the council appointed our own professional negotiators to agree terms and to commission jointly financed reports on the state of the building prior to lease. This identified that considerable investment is required (c.£345k on roof and regulatory compliance and a further c.£280k over the next 5 years). We have offered to take on £400k of this investment.
We thought things were going well, if very slowly. Or we did until we received from the council’s solicitors on 4 August an unexpected communication containing notice that if we did not sign by the end of August, they anticipated instructions to give us notice of termination. The lease provided for signature was in draft form and bears no relation to preceding negotiations. We cannot understand this.’
