A mystery developer has stepped in with a £600,000 boost that could see curtain up on a new three-screen cinema for York on Bonfire Night next year.

And the cash could bring a plot night display to the city, with fireworks going off into the night sky above the Ouse to mark the opening of the complex.

The extra funding has plugged a lottery grants shortfall in the £5 million City Screen project, which will transform the former Yorkshire Herald Building in Coney Street, York, into a three-screen cinema with restaurants and caf bar.

Work will start in the autumn with a grand opening scheduled for Guy Fawkes night 1999.

Next month, licensing magistrates in York will be asked to grant licences for the caf bar, two restaurants and a small bar at the Coney Street complex.

The caf bar will be called Pitcher & Piano - part of a chain with outlets in London, Harrogate and Newcastle.

City Screen Ltd, the company behind the development, is currently in negotiations with big-named restaurant chains who want to lease the two eating places in the complex.

Lyn Goleby, director of City Screen Ltd, said the extra £600,000 made up the shortfall in a National Lottery grant towards the scheme.

It had applied for £2.8 million - but received only £2.37 million.

Ms Goleby said: "We have closed that gap by doing a deal with another partner."

She said she could not yet reveal who the developer was because the legal contracts were not complete.

Nor could she reveal the name of the restaurants coming to the complex as negotiations were still under way.

But she said: "They will be quality restaurants."

The case for all four licences will be heard by magistrates on August 19. Ms Goleby said: "We are all doing it together because we are aiming to open together."

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