London’s Brixton Academy could reopen under a new operator with the MET Police recommending a replacement of Academy Music Group following the crowd crush at Asake’s gig last year.

The future of the venue, which has remained closed since December, was debated at a licensing hearing in London this week. There, the MET Police said it didn’t believe AMG should continue as the licensee, without going further into the reasons.

The local council, however, said it supported Brixton Academy’s reopening under AMG “in principle” as long as certain conditions are met, among them a new entry system and barriers on the adjacent highway to better manage crowd control.

The crush at the Asake concert resulted in two deaths after reports said that thousands of fans tried to force their way in, leading to overcrowding.

Since then, AMG has overhauled its security procedure, installing stronger doors, a “better” queuing system and “more secure” ticketing. A petition to keep the 5k capacity venue has reached more than 115k signatures. A decision on the venue's future should be made next week.