A KILDARE mother of two young children is ready to stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming general election to highlight local anger over proposals to scrap plans for a cinema in Newbridge's Whitewater shopping centre. Accountant Orla O'Neill says residents in the town are disillusioned over the failure of local politicians to act on a request from the owners of the centre for permission to replace the proposed cinema with further retail development.

"If the local politicians are not going to represent the residents on this kind of issue then we may have to represent ourselves, " she says. "The Dail already has a number of TDs who put themselves forward on the basis that mainstream parties are not representing their constituents."

With over 60 retailers, the centre is the largest outside of Dublin and boasts 32,000sq m of shopping space. The sixscreen cinema originally planned as part of the development has not been constructed. Instead the project developers, Ballymore Properties and Mountbrook Homes, have submitted a change-of-use planning application to Kildare county council seeking to replace the cinema with a number of retail units and a creche. A concurrent application requesting permission to construct an eight-screen cinema at a separate location away from the shopping centre was also lodged with the council.

The developers question the commercial viability of a cinema located in the shopping centre. The council has twice responded to letters from the developers citing this claim with requests for further evidence to support the contention. Residents are impatient at the council's perceived delay in reaching a decision on the matter and have accused councillors of "hiding behind the planning laws".

Among the reasons outlined by the developers for their reluctance to proceed with the original development is a belief that "the cinema as approved at Whitewater shopping centre does not meet current market expectations nor the requirements of cinema operators in terms of the number of screens provided, access arrangements and internal layout, etc".

"They were specifically asked for 'certifiable objective data and comparable data from existing cinema operators' to show the cinema will not be viable at its current location, " campaigner Jo O'Connor says. "Nothing like that has been included."

"Without any evidence to the contrary, we can only conclude this is about commercial gain . . . I've heard it said that cinema space is worth only 25% of retail space, " says O'Neill. "We think a year of documentation and questions going back and forward is more than enough time for everyone to make up their mind about the real situation."

In 2003, the council's decision to reject the original change-of-use application was upheld by An Bord Pleanala which noted that to abandon the cinema project "would have a material impact on the vibrancy of the overall scheme and would be contrary to the policies of the current Newbridge Local Area Plan which seeks to increase the town centre's vibrancy and to encourage shopping centre proposals to incorporate other uses so as to maintain activity outside normal shopping hours."

Newbridge Concerned Residents (NCR) was formed last year to oppose a second change-of-use application lodged in January 2006. A protest march organised that month attracted a crowd of around 1,500, and an NCR petition which was signed by over 6,000 people.

The residents are now demanding that local and national politicians engage directly with Sean Mulryan and Kevin Warren, the owners of the Whitewater development. "Our public representatives are the people who should be approaching these men directly and asking them to explain themselves. It's no longer sufficient to have this issue purely in the planning domain . . . we need to take it to the next level, " says O'Neill.

The residents have now invited all south Kildare general election candidates to attend a public meeting to discuss the issue in Hotel Keadeen on 10 April. "We are encouraging everyone to join us to quiz the various political parties on what they and their party colleagues are doing for this town, " Jo O'Connor says.

"We expect each general election candidate to be accountable for the action or non-action of their local reps in relation to the cinema."