Councillors Vote in Favour of Picture House Superpub Plan
The old Picture House music venue on Lothian Road in Edinburgh is to be transformed into a giant Wetherspoons pub after councillors gave their backing to the development. The city council's planning committee voted in favour of the plan by six votes to four but the pub chain still needs to win a licence to sell alcohol on the site. Critics have hit out at the develolpment saying a huge cut-price superpub, with a capacity of 1500, is the last thing the city centre needs. But Wetherspoons spokesman, Eddie Gershon told Forth News, "There are a lot of people who are not keen on Wetherspoons opening, they would rather it stayed as a music venue. "We have always emphasised that the building is shut down and, like any other operator would do, we have looked at an opportunity to develop a pub. "Our argument always was, if had still been successful as a music venue, it would have carried on but it came up for sale. "We have a number of pubs in Edinburgh, see this as a very, very good site and wanted to take advantage of that".