Councillors hope a closed cinema will soon be used by more community groups after plans to install a new fire exit were approved.

The Silver Screen Cinema in Dover shut in November 2022 as bosses found it “uneconomic to continue to run as a mainstream cinema” with declining footfall and the energy crisis.

It was only supposed to stay closed for three months but the 70-seat venue in Gaol Lane never reopened.

Instead, the site, which is next to the Dover Museum and Bronze Age Boat Gallery, has been used for events such as specialised film performances and as an education space for lectures and activities.

But the two facilities share a fire exit meaning the museum has to stay open in order for the cinema to be used.

This limits the hours in which it can be hired out and means museum staff would have to stay late if the facility was hired out in the evening to give access.

In a bid to change this, Labour-led Dover District Council (DDC) will now reconfigure the space and separate the fire exit so both the museum and the cinema can operate independently.

At a cabinet meeting on Monday, councillors approved the release of £35,000 from the special revenue projects budget to pay for the changes.

Deputy leader of DDC, Cllr Jamie Pout (Lab), explained: “At the moment to use the cinema, the fire escape is through the museum so if anyone wanted to book it and use it in the evening, museum staff would have to stay because it would need to be open for access.

“Essentially what we want to do is free it up so it can have its own emergency access so that we can allow groups to use it in the evening and make it more accessible.

“As far as things stand, it's more of a community space cinema rather than a commercially operated one, so it's literally a change to allow emergency access so that the museum doesn't have to be open at the same time.

“It's really good to have that community asset, we just want to make sure more people can use it.”

As well as changing the fire exit, the proposals also include putting in a new ceiling-mounted projector and replacing the speakers to improve the facilities inside.

At the meeting, councillors also approved plans to spend £100,000 to repair the ageing roof at Dover Museum.

The flat roof, which is now approaching 35 years old, has suffered from significant leaks which have had an impact on the operational use of the building as well as on staff.

The works are proposed to run alongside improvements to the Bronze Age Boat Gallery and general refurbishment works which will be led by KCC.