A REPORT into the financial viability of the former EMD building re-opening as a cinema is due to be published this week.
The council commissioned the report in response to pressure from campaigners, who say a number of operators have expressed an interest in taking over the historic picture house in Hoe Street.
The cinema closed in 2003 when it was bought by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), which has submitted its second planning application to convert the building into a church.
A council spokesman said the 70-page report will be released later this week but could not confirm which day.
More than 1,000 objections were registered to the UCKG’s plans for the listed building, which hosted rock legends such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Kinks in the sixties.
The planning application is due to be considered this autumn.
The McGuffin Film and Television Society, which has led a celebrity-endorsed campaign pushing for the EMD to be re-opened as a cinema, is planning a celebration of the building’s 80th anniversary in September.
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