THE McGuffin Film Society has welcomed the Heritage Lottery Fund's offer of support to help revive the EMD Cinema in Walthamstow.

Last week a council-commissioned report said that the re-opening of the former EMD building as an entertainment venue could help breathe new life into central Walthamstow.

It looked at two althernative options to the one proposed by the theatre's owners, the Universal Church for the Kingdom of God, which has submitted an application to convert the building into a church.

The McGuffin Film Society held further talks with Locum Consulting (who carried out the report) yesterday to clarify some issues in the report.

McGuffin spokesman Bill Hodgson said: "Last week's report has completely vindicated our campaign and provided the council with a roadmap for the regeneration of Walthamstow. The Heritage Lottery Fund's intervention is especially welcome at this point and is testament to the ongoing commitment of our MP to try and move this situation forward.

"We completely accept their proposition that the best solution might be for a charitable trust to work in tandem with a commercial cinema operator to revive the EMD.

"This would allow access to the kind of grant funding which the Heritage Lottery Fund has offered and means the project could proceed without any financial input from the council. However, it would be essential for local councillors to at least support such an initiative in principle and it will be interesting to see how they respond to this latest development."

During Monday's discussions, the McGuffin Film Society suggested that a charitable trust could be formed with a strong educational emphasis to highlight both the cinema's heritage and the borough's links with the early British film industry and director Alfred Hitchcock.

The film society will be inviting councillors to attend further talks with Locum Consulting to talk about the points made in the new report.

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