Councillor Terry Wheeler is clear the council will not purchase the former EMD cinema building in Walthamstow

At a council overview and scrutiny management committee last night, Conservative group leader Matt Davis urged cabinet regeneration member Terry Wheeler to make the council's position more emphatic.

Cllr Davis said: “Do you not think the council needs to manage people's expectations on the EMD, and make it clear that people can get Mick Jagger out and bunches of kids protesting but it won't make a difference?”

The former cinema building is owned by evangelical group United Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), who are due to submit plans to convert it into a church.

Campaigners have called for the council to compulsory purchase the building, so it can be used to site a cinema.

But Cllr Wheeler said: “At cabinet we will make our position clear on this, we will make it clear that it is not our building, and we can express a strong opinion that we are not going down the compulsory purchase order route.”

Cllr Wheeler, pre-empting a planning decision, said the new church and community centre will be “more attractive, to particularly young people, than a modified cinema”.

He said: “The only proposal I know will work is the UCKG church, they will restore it.

“What is the point in keeping this building full of dark and dingy spaces?”

Cllr Wheeler's comments have angered Lib Dem group leader John Macklin, who said he had been in talks yesterday with the managing director of cinema operator City Screen about the business case for re-opening the EMD.

He said: "It is completely wrong for the council, which is led on this issue by Cllr Wheeler, to be seen to be so completely dismissive of the apparent strength of public opinion on this matter."

Rock and roll legend Mick Jagger,who played at the venue with the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, has called for the building to be re-opened as a cinema and children dressed up as film characters during a protest calling for the cinema to be reopened.