A CINEMA club will be set up in Tickenham to help raise funds for a new sports facility.

Members of the Tickenham Village Field Management Committee want to create a multi-use games area (MUGA) on the field behind the village hall and needs thousands-of-pounds to do so.

So far �2,000 has been raised by holding duck races on a nearby river, music nights and through a village lottery.

However, the committee has also come up with the innovative idea of holding a monthly cinema night, bringing hit, Hollywood films to the village.

Due to start in September, the first movie to be shown at the village hall will be the sing-along version of Mamma Mia, the 2008 smash hit starring numerous household names including Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnoan and Amanda Seyfried. This will be shown at the Clevedon Road hall at 7.30pm on September 30.

Management committee chairman Alan Hooley said: “We have held three trial evenings for committee members and have now got a full cinema licence. The films will be put on once a month, with a children’s film planned for December.”

As well as organising their own fund-raising initiatives, the committee members will be applying for external funding for the MUGA through the parish council.

A planning application has this week been submitted to North Somerset Council for the facility to be installed with three-metre high fencing around it.

Once complete, it will be marked out with pitches for netball, football, basketball, tennis and hockey.

The first stage of the project will see an area of the field levelled, at a cost of about �3-4,000, and the committee hopes to complete this in the autumn, subject to planning consent being granted.

The next stage will be to lay the solid surface and install fencing, which is expected to cost more than �10,000 and could be completed within 18 months to two years.