I simply must take issue with Pat Hayes’ letter (February 14). To correct her, Trowbridge will have 15 not 16 screens, also I don’t know whether she went to the planning appeal but she would have heard that the area, which is vast, is more than capable of supporting 15 screens.

In fact, outside of Bath, which could still support another multiplex, cinema professionals deduced the current Odeon in Trowbridge is deficient by four screens.

The February half-term proved this because nearly all the kids’ films were maxed out.

Pat Hayes cited a lack of imagination by the developer. To say the developer should have put in a bowling alley as a replacement shows a lack of knowledge of leisure developments. Ten pin bowling companies will not go into a development unless a cinema is on the same site and is the anchor. It just will not get the return on its investment as a stand-alone fixture and the same can be said of an ice rink.

Due to the Morrisons, Cineworld and listed buildings which will be developed on Innox Riverside plus the desperately needed competitive petrol station, there just isn’t the space to site a bowling alley on it. Maybe an operator might be brave enough to purchase the Peter Blacks site with any additional car parking needed for the St Stephens Place complex.

Odeon and Cineworld are the country’s two largest cinema operators. They simply are not going to build and then shut up shop because they will be fighting for market share. No multiplex, even in close competition, built since 1996 has ever shut. Anyway, if one operator did decide to pull out, don’t you think the successful one might buy or lease the other screens knowing full well the area is underscreened?

Many may find it hard to believe but there will in fact be more choice of films due to distributors having some degree of clout and wanting their smaller films screened.

The Odeon Trowbridge is a very successful seven screen cinema. Avid cinemagoers will know that some films have been delayed on their release, but that’s due to lack of screens and not Odeon’s fault.

Another multiplex will correct this, and in my experience of multiplex cinemas, these two complexes will not only give more choice and produce friendly competition, but they will draw retail to this town in the form of specialist shops plus more national retail chains. And that can only be good in terms of jobs and business rates.

Mike Baxter, Frome Road, Trowbridge.