INSIDE SUTTON: A cinema which opened little more than a year ago using millions of pounds of public money is forced to shut from Sunday, leaving the council with little, if any, income from the venue. Our investigations editor, CARL SHILTON, reports
Throwley Yard Cinema in central Sutton, which opened in June 2024 backed with close to £3million of council money and public grants, will close for a final time on Sunday, leaving unpaid rent to the local authority potentially close to £90,000.
The Last Picture Show: Throwley Yard closes on Sunday, with a pile of debts
Throwley Yard, the four-screen cinema off Sutton High Street, was the last surviving venue in the portfolio of the struggling parent company, Really Local Group Ltd, which as Inside Sutton reported earlier this year had accumulated a string of failed cinemas, court orders and a pile of unpaid debts.
An email sent to the cinema’s followers this week claimed that Throwley Yard was to close on November 9 temporarily for “internal works”. The email failed to provide a reopening date. Last night Sutton Council stated the closure was permanent, with the cinema’s parent company going into administration, and that it would be seeking a new tenant for the venue.
An application was made at the High Court last month to wind up the Really Local Group for unpaid debts.
A number of companies within the Really Local Group have already gone into liquidation, although the American-born entrepreneur behind the business, Preston Benson, has recently been active in registering new companies, potentially to take on some venues in a version of a “phoenix” operation. Benson did not respond to Inside Sutton’s invitation to comment on the status of his latest failed business.
Preston parked: Preston Benson, the American-born businessman behind a string of closed cinemas
Sutton Council and council leader Barry “Basher” Lewis had failed to respond to Inside Sutton before publication, but this website is aware that after a six-month rent-free grace period, this year Throwley Yard had failed to pay its £8,750 monthly rent on a number of occasions.
Other reports claim that bailiffs have visited Throwley Yard seeking unpaid debts, while staff wages were late being paid and rubbish was piling up because contractors hadn’t received their fees.
While the efforts of the popular local staff have been regarded as heroic, with constant social media promotion and the staging of independent events, it’s the management at the top of the company structure that doomed Throwley Yard from the start. Managing director Benson’s dream to establish a cinema chain was totally reliant on millions of pounds of public grants and funds from councils who, like Sutton, are often desperate to regenerate failing high streets.
Benson’s tendency to blame banking institutions and councils for his failures is underpinned by the ethically dubious “phoenixing” of cinemas by “special purpose” companies owned by him rather than the Really Local Group.
A phoenix company is one that rises from the ashes of a predecessor company, often trading in an identical manner, but without any of the debts accumulated previously, leaving suppliers and contractors, and the tax man, out of pocket.
Benson published his intention to revive a Really Local Group cinema in Ealing, known as Ealing Project, under a company called RLG SPV Gamma Ltd, of which he was the sole shareholder. This failed, however, and the cinema closed for good in June this year.
Happy days: cinema MD Benson (left) and council leader ‘Basher’ Lewis having a laugh at the Throwley Yard’s official opening in September 2024
The phoenix company was only formed in May 2024, so no accounts have been published, but its formation as a SPV, “special purpose vehicle”, would indicate the phoenixing might have been anticipated. In all of this, no laws have been broken.
Benson has also had a run-in with an employment tribunal, after he sacked a member of staff when she alerted her bosses to colleagues’ drug use and drinking on shift at a venue in Peckham.
Benson’s evidence to the tribunal was described as “confused, vague and inconsistent”, and they found that the employee had been unfairly dismissed. She was awarded £33,000. The cinema company, Peckham Levels, went into administration and the employee received no money.
This year Benson lost a tax tribunal against HMRC in respect of a late appeal against a notice requiring security for £165,000 of PAYE and National Insurance contributions, which may leave him open to personal liability and criminal prosecution for non-compliance.
In Sutton, the council invested more than £1million in Throwley Yard, which received a further £1.9million from the government’s Future High Streets Fund. A promised £100,000 contribution from Really Local Group was never paid. Really Local Group begged that the money be amortised into rent payments – rent that the council was not receiving.
Sutton Council has a leader in Councillor Barry Lewis with his own record of companies going bust and leaving millions of pounds of debt. Despite opposition councillors pointing out repeatedly that the sums behind the Throwley Yard business never added up, “Basher” Lewis had been totally supportive of the cinema.
On the council’s website, Lewis is quoted as saying, “I am disappointed that this independent cinema did not work. But where other high streets across the UK are declining, Sutton is thriving. Over 90% of shops in Sutton are occupied and I am confident that we will soon find another business for this fantastic space.”
On October 24 this year, the official public record The Gazette published a “Petition to Wind Up” the Really Local Group Ltd, presented by one creditor, DWD Property and Planning Limited. The petition was due to be heard at the Royal Courts of Justice next Wednesday, November 12, but the company’s announcement of administration will halt this.
The Throwley Yard company, Really Local Group (Windy City) Ltd, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Really Local Group Ltd. It is not yet confirmed whether Windy City will face administration.
In their social media posting last night, Sutton Council said Throwley Yard’s operator, “the Really Local Group, confirmed it will be going into administration”.
They said: “The council, who owns the building, is now looking for a new tenant.”
They said that they would be making an announcement “soon”.
In effect, the council has invested £1million of public money to have a semi-derelict building refitted, and has received little, if any, income from that building for more than a year.
The financial prognosis for Really Local Group Ltd has been deteriorating rapidly.
Final screenings: Sutton council’s admission of defeat over the unviable cinema, published last night
Cinemas in Reading, Ealing and Sidcup were in administration at the turn of the year, and by March 2025, the Catford cinema entered administration after a meeting of creditors. Between them, the four companies had debts of £6.56million, with £3.5million owed in inter-company loans to the parent company, Really Local Group Ltd, when adding in £167,000 owed by the in-administration RLG-operated Peckham Levels.
This £3.5million of debt more than wiped out any balances in the parent company.
In their accounts for the year to December 2022, Really Local Group had a balance sheet of £1.7million, but this was shored up by an investors’ “share premium account” worth £2.7million which should not be used for day-to-day expenses.
In the latest Really Local Group accounts to the end of 2023, published in March 2025 – three months late – a balance sheet of £1.45million was declared, though the accounts were for a “micro-entity” basis, so did not declare any underlying figures. The accounts also preceded the group’s companies entering administration.
This week employees of Really Local Group have been trying to flog off the seating from the Ealing cinema on eBay and Facebook Marketplace, with prices reduced from £11,000 to £5,000. A number of professional video projectors are also listed.
Inside Sutton has contacted the administrators of the Ealing cinema to ask how the seats are being sold to benefit Really Local Group.
Read more: Sidcup Storyteller cinema to stay open after Catford Mews firm pulls out [from the Greenwich Wire]
Read more: Sutton staff kept Kingdom revenue deal secret from councillors
Read more: Council hired ‘Real’ builders and dodged Grenfell grants ban
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I guess that Preston Benson would never have screened George Monbiot’s acclaimed new documentary: The Invisible Doctrine – The Secret History of Neoliberalism. However, you can see it at Ruskin House Film Screen on Fri 21 Nov at 7.30pm (tickets on eventbrite or £5 on the door). We receive no public subsidy, pay our screening licences etc. and are not going into liquidation.
Just another disgusting spiv exploiting our pathetically weak laws to run up huge debts, close a company without paying anyone and just do it all over again. Disgusting scum.
Wait until you hear about the money raised for the cinema business using… crowdfunding!
Surely lewis – loser? – can dip into his own pocket to bail it out, or should bail-ey do so?
I hope he pays the poor staff this time.
Why Sutton went with a partner already in debt all over the city will forever be a madness to me.
This was a great place to do a bit of work. Staff were nice. I went ebb and flow one week and some geezer assaulted his missus with their toddler in a pushchair. This place finished with a honk Kong film showcase, packed out