Small independent cinema Robin's has finally bowed to pressure from movie giant UCI and is closing its Basildon site.

The David and Goliath battle has ended in the Great Oaks three-screen cinema's defeat and it has now announced it is to close for good.

A price-war broke out when the UCI multiplex, at Festival Leisure Park, arrived on the scene 18 months ago.

It was hailed as a saviour to the entertainment industry in the town, and was expected to attract thousands of cinema-goers from miles around.

Costing £11 million, it has 12 screens - including the largest screen outside the West End - and 3,000 seats.

The struggle to keep afloat saw Robin's dropping its ticket price to £1.99 - as opposed to UCI's £5.

Ben Freedman, of Robin's, announced today: "Since the multiplex opened, our cinema has gone from being a profit-making company to a significant loss-making one.

"It was decided by the people who run the company that they could not afford to put any more cash into it."

It is thought the closure will become effective immediately.

News of plans for the 12-screen state-of-the-art multiplex was met with a plan of action by Robin's.

Robin's manager Kate Ferreira said at the time company bosses were looking at changing direction to compete with the multiplex, but were confident of survival.

She told the Echo in February 1998: "Obviously we cannot compete with the multiplex on their terms.

"We are looking at showing films released earlier in the year for £1.99 and discussing targeting youngsters who cannot travel the one mile out of town to the multiplex."

This is not the first time the Great Oaks cinema has been forced to abandon ship with the arrival of a bigger and better competitor.

MGM Cinemas broke the news to 20 workers in 1994 - when the cinema was named Cannon-- the opening of the multiplex at Lakeside was then responsible for falling audience figures.

The cinema was closed down then - but re-opened later the same year.

The end of an era - the town centre cinema Robin's has given up its struggle against giant rivals UCI

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.