KFC eyes up bingo hall in Leominster

Plans have been revealed to turn a former Herefordshire bingo hall into a KFC restaurant.

Part of the former Clifton Bingo hall at the junction of South Street and Westbury Street in Leominster will become a “drive-to” KFC restaurant, if a new planning application (number 242748) is approved.

A statement with its application says the ground floor of the Art Deco building, originally a cinema, would be split into two units, with the larger, covering 250 square metres, becoming a 50-seat KFC restaurant.

The smaller, 130-square-metre unit to the rear would become a separate, yet-to-be-named takeaway restaurant, “complementing the larger unit”, the statement says.

New windows would be inserted along the Westbury Road side of the building to allow natural light in.

There would be 14 new car parking spaces to the immediate west of the building in what is currently disused ground, from where a new entrance to the ground floor would be created.

Meanwhile the striking round lobby to the front of the current building “is to be retained to allow access to the upper levels of the building”.

Here, a new first-floor space is to be created by subdividing the current auditorium – though a use for this is yet to be determined.

The KFC and the second restaurant would open from 9am to 11pm, and until 11.30 on Fridays and Saturdays, the application says.

The bingo hall, the last of its kind in the county, closed in October 2022 after eight years. Originally the Clifton cinema, the building dates from the 1930s.

There has been speculation locally over the future of the building, including at a town council meeting, with the option of it becoming flats also discussed.

Comments on KFC’s proposal can be commented on until December 19.