A LEDBURY theatrical group has applied for a £10,000 grant to give the town its first permanent cinema for 50 years.

Ledbury Amateur Dramatic Society (LADS), which owns the Market Theatre, has asked the town council for the money to install a big screen and projector.

LADS chairman Paul Graham believes the equipment could be in place by the autumn if the bid is successful.

He said: "A cinema is something the people of Ledbury are very keen to have. Hopefully, we'll be in a position to have the first films running in Septem-ber."

Visiting "Flicks in the Sticks" screenings have proved very popular with Ledbury audiences.

But because of funding problems for the project, no films have come to Ledbury this summer.

Mr Graham said the new equipment would even be of a better standard than previously used and would be akin to that in a multiplex.

"LADS has a good track record," he said. "We paid back a £20,000 loan to the town council earlier than we needed to do and the Market Theatre is an ideal venue."

Spencer Lane, chairman of the council's finance and general purposes committee, said the members would give serious attention to the request.

Ledbury's last cinema, off Bank Crescent, closed in the 1950s.

Pensioner Sue Harling, who remembers the cinema as a girl during the Second World War, said: "Ledbury has been without a cinema long enough. LADS work so hard and deserve all the success they get."