A RESCUE package for Clitheroe's Civic Hall Cinema could be in danger unless £50,000 can be found in the next few months.

The Trinity Partnership won the bid to buy the York Street cinema from Ribble Valley Borough Council in January, with the backing of the John and Rosemary Lancaster Charitable Foundation.

Last year, the council planned to close down the cinema due to falling attendances and because it was costing taxpayers £40,000 a year in subsidy.

But Trinity now appears to be reliant on obtaining almost £100,000 of funding from the borough council over three years - a bid which is to be decided by the community committee on March 7 - which will support general running costs and pay a project development manager from July.

The first year of funding will be spent on keeping the cinema open.

Trinity is due to take over the cinema on April 1, but partnership manager Geoff Jackson said that it will be shut for between four and six weeks because it has no money to carry out cleaning and repairs or run the business.

It will only re-open if the bid to the borough council is successful or money is found from elsewhere but Mr Jackson today insisted: "We will find it from somewhere."

Trinity is even considering selling shares to residents, businesses and community groups in a bid to raise much-needed funds to run the centre. The situation emerged when Mr Jackson asked Clitheroe Town Council for its backing and financial support at a meeting of the finance, planning and general purposes committee. Councillors offered their wholehearted support and reaffirmed their pledge of £1,000.

Mr Jackson told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph that the partnership needs to find £50,000 to cover the cinema's running costs for its first year.

It will then be closed down for about six months for its £1.5million transformation, to be paid for by the Lancaster Foundation, into a community arts centre with proposals for a two-screen cinema, theatre, bar facilities, cyber cafe, gallery and community function facilities. It is expected to be re-launched in September next year under the cinema's original name, The Grand.

Structural engineers are currently drawing up a report to see whether the building will have to be demolished and rebuilt or if any part can be renovated. Their report will be completed next week.

The partnership is inviting the borough council to become a stakeholder by taking up a position on the arts centre management board and pledging grant support of £96,000 over a three year period.

And it is looking for public support with cleaning and fund-raising. A public meeting will be held at Ribble Valley Council Chamber at 7.30pm on March 20.

Picture shows campaigning councillor Bert Jones outside the threatened cinema last year.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.