A CHARITY has turned an old cinema into a second-hand shopping superstore, complete with separate ‘shops’ for clothing, furniture and bric-a-brac.

Homeless charity Emmaus Bradford has taken on the former Cross Lane Picture House in Great Horton, and has kept the street-effect decor left by the previous occupant, a youth project, to create a ‘high street’ effect inside.

Chairman Rachel De Luca said: “We have kept the street-effect and the rooms are like separate shops, so there’s a ladieswear shop and a book shop, and there’s big second-hand furniture in a big open area.”

It is the organisation’s second charity shop, after it opened a smaller outlet in Idle Road, Bolton, last year.

Emmaus Bradford has ambitions to open a third shop and then set up a ‘community’ for homeless people, offering lodgings, food, clothing and a small weekly allowance for those working for the social enterprise by staffing the shops, collecting or delivering stock or helping in other ways.

The former picture house, which was built in 1914 and became the Plaza Cinema and later a bingo hall, has been owned by next-door fabrics company Jessgrove for around 10 years.

The company is offering it to Emmaus for a peppercorn rent to start with, until the shop gets established.

Jessgrove director Lee Craven, who is also leading Bradford Live’s project to restore another of Bradford’s old cinema buildings - the former Odeon - said it was this building which had set him on that path.

He said Jessgrove had bought the building as it controlled access to their own site, but at first they hadn’t known what to do with it.

They later discovered many of the features, such as a proscenium arch and vaulted ceilings, were still there, hidden behind false ceilings and walls.

He said: “We restored this, and it was this work that led to Colin Sutton, local cinema historian, coming to visit the building and talking to me, one fateful day, about the Bradford Odeon.”

The new shop, in Cross Lane, is open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10am to 4pm.

Emmaus is also looking for more volunteers and trustees. Anyone interested can email emmausbradford@outlook.com.