AN MP has called on Hyndburn Council to take urgent action to reopen Accrington's Premiere Cinema.

Hyndburn MP Greg Pope has also demanded an investigation into how the company running it was forced to close the complex.

Operator GSX put the business into voluntary liquidation last Tuesday saying it couldn't afford the £150,000-a-year rent, and ticket sales had been lower than anticipated. The operator originally set to run the complex, London-based Metroplex, sold its interest in the Premiere cinema to GSX Leisure Ltd before it opened last November.

Site owner Globe Enterprises, in which the council has a one third stake, has since admitted that vetting of Somerset-based GSX was not as stringent as it had been into Metroplex.

Labour backbencher Mr Pope says he is deeply concerned at the way the venture failed and is determined the scheme should be resurrected.

His intervention follows Hyndburn Council leader Peter Britcliffe's call for a crisis meeting to investigate how the cinema closed with spiralling debts less than a year after opening.

The Hyndburn MP said: "It is important that we find out why it closed.

"But the first thing we need to do is to find a new operator to reopen the cinema as soon as possible. We must ensure that the dream of schoolgirl Emma Allardice, who campaigned for a cinema in the town, is not allowed to die. The people of Accrington and Hyndburn want their cinema back. Once we have done that, there must be a proper inquiry into what went wrong.

"There are some incredibly serious questions as to how this was allowed to happen and why the new operator was not properly vetted. I shall be pressing the council both on reopening the cinema and holding a proper inquiry." Mr Pope also urged the council to reveal whether it knew in advance the company had no previous experience of running cinemas.

The cinema, the first in the town for more than 10 years, opened last November but closed last Monday night.