A £1.6MILLION bid to transform a Hyndburn theatre is set for a £400,000 investment after a lottery bid was turned down.

Hyndburn Council announced it was stumping up part of the £1.6million from its own capital funding to revamp Oswaldt-wistle Civic Theatre.

The decision to invest comes after council leader Peter Brit-cliffe vowed to never give up on the project.

The revamp of the theatre is part of long-term plans to convert it into a Community Arts Centre for young people.

Original plans, announced last September, had aimed to create a stylish community arts hub which would have been the crowning achievement of Hynd-burn’s Year of Culture.

The bid to transform the building with new rehearsal spaces, equipment, a cafe bar, and dedicated theatre staff to liaise with schools, had hinged on obtaining lottery funding.

Coun Britcliffe said: “The theatre is currently a 470-seat theatre on the first floor level, with a range of mostly-unused rooms on the ground floor.

“The priority will be to adapt the rooms downstairs into rehearsal rooms, studios, meeting rooms and one large community space which can be used for smaller-scale prod-uctions, workshops, rehearsals and other arts activities like music, film, and dance.”

Long term the project will also refurbish the theatre, increasing the capacity to 500-plus making it more attractive for bigger-name artists to visit.

Coun Britcliffe added: “This is an exciting project for the borough’s young people as the new facility will incorporate rooms for them to meet, study and develop their own perf-ormance work.

“It will also become a jobs" target="_blank">training centre for young people who wish to go into the arts.

"It will focus mostly on performance skills, but will become a centre for all art forms – dance, drama, music, visual art, new media, film and TV, with a specialised editing suite.

“It will provide a mentoring service which will make it an inspirational and aspirational place to be.

"Young people will be able to develop skills both performance and technical, such as backstage, lighting, sound, and film.”