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Work began on Tuesday evening on the demolition of the historic Futurist cinema - just hours after a bid to save the building was thrown out by top judges.

A long-running legal battle ended earlier when the Court of Appeal backed the £39m development bid that will see a hotel, new shops and student accommodation built on Lime Street .

The decision means the Futurist - Liverpool’s first purpose-built cinema - will be demolished along with a host of neighbouring properties over the coming weeks.

Contractors moved onto Lime Street earlier this evening with the road blocked off between its junctions with Ranelagh Street and Skelhorne Street.

Bus routes were changed and a council spokesman said the demolition of 10 buildings on Lime Street - between but not including the listed Crown and Vines pubs - would be carried out in the next few weeks.

The Futurist, which opened in 1912, is expected to have been knocked down by Thursday night.

The arrival of heavy machinery came just hours after a landmark court decision ended more than a year of legal wrangling over the controversial plans.

Campaign group SAVE Britain’s Heritage had sought to block the scheme by taking their fight to the Court of Appeal, but the development was given the go ahead.

The group said it was now considering taking its battle to the Supreme Court - but that move could now fall too late.

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said: “We’ve got to crack on with it as we cannot afford further delays and disruption. It’s cost us more than £250,000 in legal fees - that needs to be emphasised.”

He told the ECHO: “This is a city that has demonstrated clearly that it is committed to preserving old buildings where it is viable to do so. Unfortunately that has not been the case as far as Lime Street is concerned.

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“It is now almost a year since we granted this scheme planning permission, and due to the legal action this scheme has been in limbo, meaning Lime Street, one of the city’s key gateway routes, has not had the investment that it so desperately needed.

“We have recently spent hundreds of thousands of pounds having to make the façade of The Futurist safe, causing massive disruption.

“All this could have been avoided had SAVE accepted the original judgement from the High Court in January.”

Henrietta Billings, Director of SAVE said: “We are pleased that through our actions so far we have been able to draw national and international attention to what is happening in Liverpool – a debate that is long overdue.

“Now we are currently assessing our options for appealing the decision in the Supreme Court.”