A CONTROVERSIAL plan to turn a former theatre in Stockton into a nightclub and restaurant has been withdrawn.

Northern County Leisure had applied to Stockton Borough Council seeking permission for the conversion of the Globe Theatre in the town's High Street.

The plans provoked an outcry from local historians and councillors who said the area already had too many nightspots.

Last month, members of the council's planning and licensing committees decided to defer any decisions made on the application. As a result, Northern County Leisure has decided to withdraw the plans. Jonathan Marsh, from the company, said: "We just develop the units and do not run them.

"The people who were going to run it have decided it was becoming too much of a long, drawn out process, and have decided to withdraw."

The Globe began life as a cinema in the early 1900s.

It was rebuilt in the mid-1920s and in 1935 was shaped into the building it is today. In 1938, it became an ABC and then a combined cinema and theatre after the Second World War.

It had a brief resurgence as a music venue in the mid-1970s, staging acts such as Mud and the Bay City Rollers. The Beatles and Cliff Richard also appeared there. By 1977 it had become a Mecca Bingo Hall, and stayed that way until Rank moved to new premises a few years ago. The building is now boarded up.

Local historian Robert Harbron believes that now the application has been withdrawn, the building should be kept as a theatre.

He said: "We need to keep the Globe as a theatre offering a wide range of theatrical productions. The Arc is to re-open, but that will be for more community type activities and we need somewhere which will allow bigger events to be held.

"If Billingham Forum is to be demolished, which I hope it is not, then we have nowhere to go for live theatre in the borough of Stockton.

"A plan needs to be made as to what to do with the Globe."