Old cinema collapses into city street a little sooner than workers had planned

A cinema that was being demolished in Newcastle collapsed before it was meant to, thus fulfilling the brief but not quite in the way that workers had intended.

So keen was the old Odeon on Pilgrim Street to finally lay itself to rest that it toppled to the ground ahead of schedule, covering the road in debris and bent scaffolding in the process.

Despite dramatic pictures and reports of very loud bangs, no one was hurt in the fall and ambulance services were not required.

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Ex-reporter Esther Beadle was on the scene and tweeted that the collapse “happened right in front of me”.

She reported that the building fell at around 11.15pm last night, and police on the scene told her that it was planned to happen – just not quite in the way that it did.

“Chatty helpful copper ALSO says “it WAS planned (and southbound WAS blocked off), but wasn’t planned to happen like THAT.”,” she tweeted.

After a swift tidy-up, the road was back open to traffic and pedestrians this morning.

Local reporter Laura Hill spoke to the council’s surveyor, David Wilson, who summed it up when he told her, “Thankfully no one was hurt. It is a right mess though.”