Cinema operator The Light has been revealed as a big-name addition to Huddersfield’s Kingsgate Centre.

The London-based company has been signed up to run the state-of-the-art multi-screen cinema at the £100m Kingsgate Leisure development which received planning permission from Kirklees Council in December.

The Light will show the latest blockbusters, independent and international films, as well as screening live opera, ballet, theatre and pop concerts from around the globe by prestige companies such as the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre.

The Light launched in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008, with a seven-screen, all-digital cinema.

This was followed in 2009 with a cinema in Halle, Germany. It opened its first UK cinema in New Brighton, Merseyside, in 2011 and now has cinemas in locations including Sheffield, Stockport, Bolton, Cambridge and Dundee.

Next at the Kingsgate centre, Huddersfield
Next at the Kingsgate centre, Huddersfield

Kingsgate Leisure, which will also feature a range of restaurants, will have an entrance from Cross Church Street and link to the existing shopping mall. In total, it will expand the Kingsgate complex by 50%.

Owner WD Kingsgate has also got the go-ahead to upgrade the mall’s Next and JD Sports units. The Next store will expand to 25,000sq ft while JD Sports will move from a 3,000sq ft unit to the 8,000sq ft flagship former Currys and Toys R Us store.

Chief executive Peter Everest was tight-lipped about the plans but said The Light would not be about “tip-down seats, popcorn and fizzy drinks.”

Mr Everest said work on site would not begin until 2018, but that it was still expected to open Kingsgate Leisure by Christmas, 2019. “We are getting down to the huge amount of detail that a project of this kind involves,” he said.

Mr Everest said the scheme responded to the needs of a “large, relatively affluent” town by developing “a new vision for Kingsgate that will modernise the centre and ensure it remains prosperous for years to come.”

Huddersfield has been rated seventh in the top 10 towns and cities for potential growth by marketing research body CACI.

Mr Everest said that while many shopping centres in the UK were coming under commercial pressure, Kingsgate had remained buoyant. Its anchor store, House of Fraser, was significantly upgraded in 2015 and regularly outperformed neighbouring stores while other Kingsgate retailers continued to trade exceptionally well.

He said: “This is a really exciting time for us. We are responding to a need from our primary catchment to have somewhere to spend long periods of time from day into evening. The new restaurants and The Light will go a long way to improving the perception of the night-time economy in Huddersfield.”