EMERGENCY talks are set to take place on Thursday over a possible rescue bid for a popular Haslingden community centre.

Community Action Rossendale last week announced it is withdrawing from the Mary Hindle Resource Centre in Bury Road.

The prospect of the centre, once the New Thorn pub, becoming a media hub is now being explored by backers of the soon-to-be-launched Rossendale Radio.

This Thursday will see a meeting at the venue, which opened nine years ago, hosted by radio bosses, and fresh support is being sought from valley organisations.

The radio station was granted a five-year licence by Ofcom and is set to begin broadcasting this autumn and the Mary Hindle centre had been earmarked as a potential base.

But station officials say they need extra partners to make the move work and have appealed for firms and groups to take an interest.

Tony Nixon, the radio station’s project director, said: “We can’t afford to keep it open by ourselves so for us to be seriously interested in using the building as part of our plans there’d need to be half a dozen other groups involved too.

“We need to move really quickly to get Rossendale Radio on air so already have plans elsewhere for our main studio facility.

“But that wouldn’t rule out using the Mary Hindle Centre for other parts of our project, for example delivering radio training courses.”

Next Monday a CAR board meeting has been scheduled to formally renounce the group’s interest in the facility, with running costs of around £30,000 cited as a contributory factor.

Mr Nixon said: “This will only work for us if there are enough projects and businesses to collectively run the building and source funding to keep it open initially.

“My priority at the moment is launching Rossendale Radio, but it’d be a shame for this facility to close so I’m inviting interested parties to come forward.”

The media meeting will take place at the centre at 2pm.