THE chairman of an international cinema heritage group has predicted that Darlington's Thirties cinema will close.

Plans have been unveiled for a nine-screen multiplex only a few hundred yards from the pre-war Odeon theatre, in Northgate.

Concerns were raised about the fate of the three-screen Odeon after company management refused to comment on the cinema's future.

Richard Gray of the Cinema Theatre Association - a London-based group which campaigns for the preservation of historically important cinemas across the world - said yesterday that traditional film houses regularly close when modern multiplexes open nearby.

"I would imagine that the Darlington Odeon will close - you see this happening all over the country," he said.

"Odeon has a lot of high street sites and they see them as real estate. They have been pulling out of traditional cinemas all over the UK."

Vue Cinemas has signed a 20-year lease to run a multiplex at The Oval, the £110m shopping mall which is to open in Commercial Street, in the town centre, in autumn 2010.

The site is less than half a mile from the cinema in Northgate, which first started screening films in 1938.

"They will certainly close the Odeon, because they will realise there is not enough business," said Mr Gray.

"Odeon recently closed a traditional Thirties cinema in York - the one in Darlington will go, too."

Mr Gray added that the Cinema Theatre Association, which has members in Britain, the US, Australia and India, may write to English Heritage to ask for the Northgate cinema to be given protected status.

"What we have done in the past is try to retain the buildings, whatever their future use is," he said.

"This building is not listed at the moment, but we will be discussing that at our next meeting.

"Cinemas in Blyth and Carlisle, which were built by the same architects, are already listed, so it is a possibility."

A spokesman for Odeon Cinemas said the company did not wish to comment.