AFTER six years without a cinema, Wantage film fans will now have two.

Wantage Town Council is to set aside at least £30,000 to buy a projector and screen and set up the regular screenings in Wantage Civic Hall.

The Oxford Mail reported in October that movies are also to be shown in the old Regent Cinema in Newbury Street – now late-night venue Shush.

The cinema closed in 2005 after the business failed.

Deputy mayor Fiona Roper said every community should have a cinema.

She said: “It is something that a lot of people have been wanting. It will also be very good to boost trade at the Civic Hall as we want to support it and keep it open.”

Tim Weekes, chairman of Friends of Wantage Cinema, said he supported the plans and a cinema had been missed in Wantage.

He said: “I haven’t got the full low-down yet but any cinematic entertainment in the town is a good thing.

“For those of us who don’t drive the last bus back from Didcot is at 7.30pm and Swindon and Oxford is a fair journey away.”

He said the group was to meet to decide whether or not it should donate some £6,000 collected by supporters to set up a cinema in the town.

Linda Hatter, president of Wantage Chamber of Commerce, said: “There has always been a call for a cinema for a very long time and we have an ideal venue there which is probably under used.”

Town council member Jenny Hannaby said the previous Liberal Democrat administration had initiated the plans.

She said: “It has been consulted on, the public want it, now it is just a matter of finding the funds and the right equipment.”

Shush opened in the old cinema building in April and a cinema club was launched last month with about two screenings a week.

The projector and screen, which cost more than £10,000, was first used in September for a screening of A Tortoise in Love – a romantic comedy filmed in Kingston Bagpuize.

But owner Steve Head said the council should not invest cash in the scheme as a regular cinema business was not viable.

He said: “I think it is an outrageous use of taxpayers’ money knowing full well that the other one failed and there is a facility already there at our venue.”