EAST Hampshire District Council (EHDC) has been accused of using “bully-boy tactics” in an attempt to force Alton Town Council to support a “done deal” over a proposal for a new leisure centre that is not seen to meet the community’s needs or aspirations for the future.

There was standing room only at the town’s full council meeting last Wednesday with representatives from local sports clubs vying with the public to have their say on the mix of facilities to be provided by the new centre, as agreed in a legal contract signed at the end of March by EHDC and service provider Sports Leisure Management, trading as Everyone Active.

The contract sealed the agreement to work with Everyone Active, who will help build and run East Hampshire’s three sports and leisure centres – the other two being in Bordon and Petersfield. The build programme has a budget of £30m and, according to EHDC project manager Sean Herdman-Grant, Alton is due to benefit from the lion’s share of the budget, as it will be the bigger centre.

But not big enough, it is feared, for an expanding community. It was made clear at the meeting that when Alton’s state-of-the-art sports centre was built in the early 1970s with Alton money, it had a footprint of 8,000 square metres and served a population of around 13,500. The proposed new centre, described in EHDC’s on-line specification as a “leisure centre” and not a “sports centre” will provide broadly like-for-like facilities but can expect to serve a growing population of up to 22,000 by the year 2020.

And that does not take into account the rapidly expanding villages such as Four Marks where Section 106 money from development, originally earmarked for a new community building, has been reallocated to Alton’s new ‘leisure’ centre.

The bottom line appears to be that, despite boasting a reduced council tax while maintaining services, EHDC is not able to afford to give Alton and the surrounding villages the sports centre needed to serve a growing community for the next 50 years.

But this has not been a problem shared with the electorate who, if consulted over the mix of facilities to be provided – a “mix” that Mr Herdman-Grant confirmed was “non-negotiable” – would undoubtedly have come up with different solutions such as a third storey on the current site, a change in the ‘mix’ to reflect the desperate need of the swimming club and the secondary schools for an eight-lane 50m pool, of the squash clubs for four courts, and for the trampolinists and gymnasts for greater space to enable them to accommodate burgeoning waiting lists, rather than the proposal to provide a 130-station rather than the current 56-station gym, and a “destination spa” - both of which could impact significantly on local businesses, and would not meet the needs of the younger generation.

Those at the meeting expressed deep concern over “the air of secrecy” surrounding the proposal and over the lack of public consultation. Even more surprising, while outline permission was granted for the building of a new facility on land adjacent to the existing sports centre in October 2015, Alton Town Council had only received a private briefing over the mix of internal facilities to be provided an hour before the meeting, following the online posting of the specification on EHDC’s website the day after Easter.

Town mayor Matthew Bayliss listed the number of times since EHDC’s “poor” public consultation in 2015 that the town council has asked for details of the specification, only to be “fobbed off”.

Now, he said, Alton Town Council had received “firm direction from EHDC to support the spec, and it had come with a threat” that if councillors did not agree then “the new sports centre for Alton may well not proceed”.

Of the firm opinion, however, that the new facility should be designed to “serve a growing community and in particular the next generation” as outlined in Alton’s neighbourhood plan, and in line with the conviction, by The Alton Society, that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, and Alton and District Sports Council’s desire to “get it right”, councillor Pam Jones proposed a deferral on the decision to allow more time for debate and to enable Alton Town Council to carry out a meaningful public consultation.

While some councillors felt compelled to support EHDC and hope that the town council may be able to work with the district council and Everyone Active to influence improvements in the offering, others were of the opinion that it was “too late” and would simply seal the deal for “1970s provision for 2020’s needs.”

They voted six to four to defer the decision pending a public consultation to be run by Alton Town Council and to come back for decision at full council on July 11.

And it was unanimously agreed to express the town council’s concern over EHDC’s failure to give the public “a meaningful opportunity to shape the final facility mix in the new sports centre through consultation”.