Ambitious plans for a huge concert hall on a town centre car park have been put on hold while developers “change things slightly”.

Multi-millionaire Paul Gregg put forward his ‘Ashford LIVE’ scheme for the Vicarage Lane car park last year, incorporating the former Mecca Bingo hall.

It was hoped the £9m project would transform the town’s nightlife, bringing West End shows, music concerts and opera to Ashford.

But the 83-year-old, a former director of Everton Football Club, says he is now focusing his efforts on the boarded-up hall, which was previously the town’s Odeon cinema.

When he first announced his plans last February, Mr Gregg had hoped to attract English National Opera (ENO) to the town after the company was told by Arts Council England to relocate from London or lose its public funding.

But in December the opera company announced it will move to Greater Manchester – a move Mr Gregg described as “disappointing”.

He said he would still submit a planning application to Ashford Borough Council (ABC), but documents are yet to come forward.

“We're going to have a conversation about maybe reopening the Odeon but I don't know,” Mr Gregg told KentOnline this month.

“We are going to change things slightly."

Mr Gregg said last year how he wanted to flatten the rear of the ex-Mecca Bingo building while retaining the ornate frontage, but his reworked plans are not yet clear.

ABC leader Cllr Noel Ovenden (Ashford Independent) says the authority has had discussions with the developer, but the whole project has been “put on ice” until more information is provided.

“Mr Gregg came to us with the proposal and we asked for a more detailed proposal so we could take it to members and have a better look,” Cllr Ovenden said.

"We have not said no, we have not said yes, we just didn't have enough info from ‘Ashford LIVE’.

"If he was to come back with a more detailed proposal then we could take a look at it.

"Until that stage, we have put the whole thing on ice.”

ABC, which is now led by an Ashford Independents/Green Party coalition, previously wanted to build a public square and 230 homes on the car park, but dropped that scheme in February 2022.

The former Conservative-run administration spent £2m on consultants as future options for the site were considered, but no plans have ever progressed.

In 2020, bosses put ‘specialist developer' Milligan in charge of their plans for the former bingo hall, which ABC paid £1.8m for two years earlier.

But at a council meeting last November, former ABC leader Cllr Paul Bartlett (Con) said “we’ve spent £2m on consultants and out of that we have achieved precisely the square root of nothing”.

While uncertainty still surrounds the site’s future, Cllr Ovenden says he would instead like to see the building become a community asset such as a town hall.

“I have a strong desire to see the Odeon become a community facility within the town and I hope to see it in the corporate plan subject to consultation,” he added.

The corporate plan is a document full of long-term aims and objectives the council hopes to achieve over the next few years.

The next plan is set to be announced within the coming months.

A spokesman for ABC added: “No future decisions have been made with regard to the future of the Odeon.”