A trip to Canterbury’s newest cinema will cost a family-of-four £45 for tickets alone, bosses have confirmed.

Curzon, which has a smaller three-screen venue at the Westgate Hall, is set to open a larger site in Kingsmead as part of the £115m Riverside development.

It was thought tickets would be cheaper given the size and location of the venue. But this week, Robert Kenny, Curzon’s director of cinema development, confirmed its prices will be the same as those at the Westgate Hall site, where a standard adult ticket costs £13.50.

With popcorn and drinks, the bill for a family of two adults and two children is likely to ring the tills at more than £60.

In a debate on KentOnline's sister paper the Kentish Gazette’s Facebook page, most people said they were happy paying £5 to watch a film, with one commenter branding the Curzon’s prices a “rip-off”.

The £45 ticket cost for a family - which includes an online booking fee - compares to £27 at the city’s Odeon theatre, £22 at Herne Bay’s Kavanagh, and £22.96 at rival multiplex Vue, at Westwood Cross, which offers free parking.

But Mr Kenny says the new Curzon - where parking will only be free after 5.30pm - will not try to match the cheaper prices.

“That’s their policy and I don’t see other operators doing it,” said Mr Kenny. “We’ll retain our prices. We encourage our membership as you get discounts and so you kind of get your money back.

“It encourages people to come to the cinema on a regular basis and we want to make people feel part of the Curzon family.”

Mr Kenny says Curzon has signed a deal with the developer and is on the verge of appointing a designer and architect for the project.

“We’re planning on five screens with 520 seats, with the biggest having 150 seats,” he said. “The one in Westgate will stay and so in total we’ll have eight screens in Canterbury.”

Curzons’ smaller 220-seat Westgate Hall cinema - with two screens of 66 seats and one of 88 - opened in 2014.

Mr Kenny insists the two city theatres will complement each other and increase the number of films that can be shown.

“We’ve been there for about five years and, to be honest with you, we’ve been bursting at the seams since we opened,” he said.

“The Curzon brand is well-loved and Westgate is not big enough now.

“We’d like to play more films and play them for longer periods and we’ll be able to do this with the Riverside development. The demand is there.”

Mr Kenny says the two theatres will both offer mainstream and independent films.

He admits Curzon is picky about its locations and says the operator was desperate to get the Riverside contract

“Canterbury fits it to a ‘t’,” he said. “Curzon took off in Westgate from the word go and was accepted straight away. People understand what Curzon stands for.

“It’s a different experience to a multiplex. It’s more curated. We show blockbusters but we show other things, too. Our aim is to show quality films. That could be mainstream or independent - as long as it’s good.”

The new cinema will be Curzon’s 16th. “It’s still a relatively small cinema chain,” he said.

“We have a certain independence, even though we’re privately owned. We’re the anchor tenant so we’ll be at Riverside first and will be used to attract other tenants.”

Mr Kenny says it would be good to be alongside smaller and more independent brands, which “fits with their ethos”.

“Councils know they are having to go down that route and I think it’s a great way to revitalise city centres,” he said.

Mr Kenny says the cinema firm is keen to get going and move into Kingsmead.

Last week, Hyde Group and development partner Linkcity exchanged contracts with Canterbury City Council on the mixed-use regeneration scheme.

The project will deliver 189 affordable homes, as well as student accommodation.

The council has agreed to invest £23 million in the commercial side of the project, which includes the cinema, restaurants, 220-space car park, public square and entertainment area.

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