The Point celebrates its 40th birthday in Milton Keynes with a faint ray of hope it can be saved from demolition

Currently the iconic red pyramid, once a shining beacon for the city centre, is set to be bulldozed to make way for almost 500 flats in blocks of up to 21 storeys tall.

Developers Galliard Holdings won planning consent for the £150 million scheme earlier this year on appeal, despite objections from the city council.

But now, according to national campaigners from the Twentieth Century Society, the building is now being reassessed by Historic England to see whether it should be preserved for posterity under law.

And, says the Society, "crucial new evidence” has emerged in favour of The Point’s historical significance.

“While it was known to have been Britain’s first American style multiplex cinema, former AMC cinema executives Millard Ochs and Charles J Wesoky have now confirmed The Point was the first example of a multiplex anywhere outside the United States,” said a spokesperson,

It was 1986 when the building first opened as a bold new experiment by the AMC cinema chain. The opening films were Back to the Future, The Goonies and My Beautiful Laundrette.

The Point shot to immediate success, sparking a renaissance in British cinema-going and helping to inspire the global proliferation of multiplexes. In the first year alone, it welcomed more than a million visitors, doubling initial expectations. Within a few years there were 41 more multiplexes across Britain containing 387 screens – a quarter of all cinema screens in the country at the time.

But in the year 2000, the nearby Xscape leisure complex opened, complete with a large cinema, and The Point went into decline. Its resident nightclub closed in 2007 and the the Odeon cinema followed in 2015.

Galliard eventually bought the site, only to have their planning application for the flats unanimously turned down by the council. A costly appeal led to this being overturned

Labour leader of the council, Peter Marland, said the appeal decision showed a “complete disregard for the unique heritage of the city” and that the proposed scheme was “terrible in almost every single way” with its “bad design” and “identikit flats”.

"The Point is just as important for the people of Milton Keynes as the Liver Building is to the people of Liverpool or St Paul’s is to Londoners – just because its newer doesn’t mean it’s any less important,” he said,

Milton Keynes Council is now receiving legal advice as to whether it can challenge the planning appeal while Historic England assesses whether The Point should become only the second post-war listed cinema in the country.

Currently the building it is subject to a Heritage England Certificate of Immunity, which prevents it from being listed, but this expires early next year. Now campaigners are pinning their hopes on it being replaced with a full protection order.

Oli Marshall, Campaigns Director at the Twentieth Century Society, said: “As the government plans the next generation of 21st century New Towns, we should be celebrating and preserving the best heritage of our original post-war New Towns. The Point is the most historically important cinema built in Britain since the ‘golden age’ of the 1930s and its pyramid is the indisputable landmark of Milton Keynes. Remarkably only one post-war cinema in Britain is currently listed (the 1960s Curzon in Mayfair) – it’s high time we changed that.”

Emily Darlington, MP for Milton Keynes Central, said: “Though the site has fallen derelict in recent years, the complete demolition of The Point would be a considerable loss to our local heritage assets. It sits right besides our Grade II listed Shopping Centre, as well as sitting pride of place on our recently-launched New Town Heritage Register – it holds a special place in our New Town story, and in the memories of those who moved to Milton Keynes in the early years.”