CHIPPENHAM: Astoria cinema owner John Angel has rubbished the idea he will sell up the site to make way for housing but developers say the search for a new cinema site continues.

The Gazette reported that Ashwood Homes wants to bulldoze the Astoria and replace it with 32 new homes.

Bristol-based Ashwood is currently erecting 15 new flats on the site of the former Toc H building at the side of the cinema.

As well as this, the firm wanted to flatten the rest of the cinema site and replace it with a courtyard of flats and affordable housing, before going on to build a three-screen multiplex cinema elsewhere in Chippenham.

But angry Mr Angel said: "There have been no meetings and the whole thing is a lot of rubbish.

"They have made it all up. There has been no approach whatsoever, and nothing has happened. I have a tenant on a 99-year lease. I have had no discussions with these people at all. It is a lot of rubbish."

However Alan Tabley, of Crescent Properties, the Corsham-based-firm which sources development sites for Ashwood Homes, said an offer had been made to Mr Angel and claimed he had documentary evidence to prove negotiations had been underway.

Mr Tabley said Mr Angel had decided not to go through with the deal but the offer was still on the table if he wanted to change his mind.

"We're not playing games here," he said.

Crescent is still on the look-out for a new auditorium/cinema site in Chippenham however, and Mr Tabley said they were checking out a new location this week, though he could not reveal where it was.

Mr Tabley said they also had their eye on the car park site in Spanbourne Avenue near the back of the cinema as potential housing. It's owned by North Wiltshire District Council.

Crescent had gone so far as to draw up artist's impressions of the new housing development being proposed for the Astoria site in Marshfield Road and Mr Tabley was confident it would have received planning approval.

He thought the district council would be glad to be rid of the site because the town needs more homes and a better cinema.

Mr Tabley has tasked estate agents to come up with a suitable site for a multiplex and both the 48-acre Langley Park, home to Westinghouse Brakes, and Methuen Park in Bath Road, are being considered.