THE entrepreneur who reopened Thurso Cinema is seeking between £6 million and £8m of investment backing to open a chain of small picture houses around Scotland.

Rob Arthur, ex-head of the Apollo group of 14 independent cinemas in England, believes there is an opportunity north of the Border to open cinemas in areas away from the main cities, something which has been ignored by multiplex operators.

He said: "Larger chains want 100,000 people within 20 minutes' drive of their cinema. It's too challenging for them to go outside of the major cities.

"It means there are quite a lot of areas where there isn't any cinema. When you think that there is an average of one cinema per 16,000 people in the UK, it means that 15 of Scotland's 32 council areas are under-served. I believe Scotland has scope for about 20 more of these cinemas."

Although Arthur is based in the central belt, he identified Thurso several years ago as the ideal place to test his business model. The town's two-screen cinema had opened with Scottish Arts Council backing in the late 1990s, but was liquidated in 2009 after failing to attract sufficient audiences.

Supported by RBS, Arthur reopened it last July with lower ticket prices, more varied films and live events, and is on target to break even in the next couple of months. He then intends to add more screens and a bar/restaurant service. His target is to open five more cinemas in the next five years.

The model is to look for modern sites such as empty retail outlets, which are generally easier to set up than former cinemas from many years ago.

Arthur has estimated that each would cost between £1.2m and £2.4m to open, although a chunk of this money would be absorbed by a digital screen provider and paid back over a period of years. Thurso has a deal of this sort with Sony.

He said: "The aspiration is to have six cinemas within five years. But once you start a roll, there are so many empty warehouses.

"Once the concept is demonstrated, if investors and local authorities like the idea, it could end up being 12. But you won't see anything happening for maybe three years. We're talking about a long period of immaturity and then a sudden spike."