Cinema in the back of a lorry pops up in Newmarket

David Hall, director of the Newmarket Charitable Foundation, said "you would not believe you are in the back of a lorry"

A 100-seater cinema in the back of a lorry has opened in a town that has not had a picture house for decades.

Organisers said they hoped to gauge the local appetite for a cinema in Newmarket, Suffolk, by setting up the attraction for 10 days.

There are plans to turn the former home of National Horseracing Museum into a venue for films.

David Hall, from the charity behind the scheme, said it would give the town a "boost".

The pop-up cinema has been set up at the The Severals Sports Pavilion until 19 February, with four to five showings a day.

Mr Hall, director of the Newmarket Charitable Foundation, said: "For the length of half-term, local kids and adults are going to be able to be entertained at a 100-seater cinema, how cool is that?"

Of the mobile facility, he said, "you would not believe you are in the back of a lorry", adding it was air-conditioned and had "high quality seats".

The 100-seater facility is in Newmarket until 19 February

Newmarket used to have two cinemas but one closed in the 1960s and another shut down in the 1970s.

He said the charity was working with Jockey Club Estates to develop plans to turn the old horseracing museum into a three-screen boutique picture house.

Mr Hall said it would be "fabulous" to have a cinema back in the town.

"From an economy point of view, it means that people would stop leaving the town of an evening to go to either Cambridge or Bury St Edmunds.

"To have a cinema in the town would provide a boost to the high street," he added.

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He said they were gauging evidence of the local appetite with a questionnaire so they could then potentially apply for funding.

Nick Patton, from Jockey Club Estates, said a lot of work would need to go into developing a cinema at the 250-year-old building.

The building has been empty since the museum moved seven years ago .