PLANS to build a new £6.5million eight-screen cinema have sparked a flood of memories.

On Friday, the Telegraph revealed that Blackburn with Darwen Council has submitted a planning application for the cinema on the former Waves Water Fun Centre site in Nab Lane.

The new cinema will include two food and drink outlets, together with a licensed bar.

The news has seen the Telegraph take a trip down memory lane with pictures looking at some of the cinemas from days gone by in East Lancashire which are bound to stir some happy memories for readers.

Pictures show The Classic Cinema in Blackburn in 1980 and the Odeon Cinema in the 1970s before it closed down and was demolished in 1974.

Images also show the Olympia Cinema which closed in 1958, the Ritz Cinema before it closed its doors and Blackburn’s Unit Four Cinema in 1978.

And readers have taken to the social media to recall their past memories of going to the cinema, with others calling for old cinemas to be done up.

One reader, who called himself willie eckerslike, said he remembered going to the Empress Cinema in Burnley.

He said: “I remember going to the flicks at the Empress Cinema in Burnley as a teenager.

“With admission fee, ice cream, box of poppets, bottle of hubbly-bully, fish and chips and tram fare home I still had change from two bob.”

“It’s a piece of Burnley history.”

He added: “I still go to the Palace Cinema in Longridge where they serve tea in proper mugs and still play the national anthem before every film.”

Vanessa Hurtley said on Facebook: “If they wanted a second cinema they should have taken over and maintained the old cinema building in Blackburn after it closed instead of letting it get into such a sorry state.”