Storyhouse Deva stadium drive-in cinema will now go ahead after ‘toilet-gate’ problem solved

Bosses at Chester’s Storyhouse have said their Halloween Drive-in cinema event in the car park of Chester FC’s Stadium will go ahead after all.

Earlier this week they said they were looking for a new venue for the drive-in cinema due to what they described as ‘toilet-gate.’

Chester FC’s home ground is partly in England and Wales and the border with Flintshire runs through the middle of the stadium car park.

The theatre company has already had to refund customers who live in Wales as they are now banned from leaving where they live under lockdown rules.

People living in England are banned from coming into Wales meaning and the loos at the stadium are in the Welsh area.

People straying into the wrong bit of the car park to would mean North Wales Police would have to act.

Storyhouse has now sourced some portaloos so customers can “have a wee without breaking the law”.

They posted an update on social media on Friday, it said:

“Thank you so much for the support (and puns) over the last few days as we have tackled one of the more strange and surprising problems of lockdown, toilet-gate!”

“We are as determined as ever to bring some much-needed joy and would be devastated to cancel and disappoint our bookers. So we now have a plan.”

“We will stay at Deva Stadium, but have reduced the capacity so we can comfortably fit all cars on the English side of the border and can manage entry and exit carefully.”

“We will also be providing portaloos so customers can have a wee without breaking the law!”

“Sadly, we will have to cancel our hot dogs as we’ll no longer be able to provide these on-site, however, you are still welcome of course to bring your own food and drink with you. You can still buy our amazing Retro Sweet Boxes if you fancy a treat.”

“For most bookers, this means everything is going ahead for you as planned. For some bookers, this means some disruption to your event. All bookers have been contacted by email.”

Storyhouse Chief Executive Andrew Bentley told BBC Radio Wales:

“We knew the car park was in Wales obviously, we’ve been doing it for a while a long time for the [Wales] circuit breaker happened.

The border goes down the middle of Deva Stadium and a bit of the car park is in Wales.”

“You can’t get to it from Wales you have to drive down Sealand Road into England get into the car park.

“When the Tier Two restrictions in Chester were introduced we got a license from England so we could do it on both sides of the border.”

“We asked North Wales Police if we let our customers drive through England to get back into Wales to watch the film, they said they couldn’t as they would have enforced that border, we were a bit grumpy about that.”

“Then the circuit breaker came in so we can’t run the cinema of Wales anyway, we thought we will move to the English side of the car park, but the toilets are still in the stands which are in Wales.

We asked the police if the customers use the toilet in Wales and they said no, so we thought it was obviously a slightly humorous story so so it’s got.”

“We can see the humour in it obviously, people are an awful lot worse position than they are.”