LISS Triangle Centre could be on course for a £14,000 facelift, as funds are being sought to revamp the reception area of the popular community asset. At a Liss Parish Council meeting on Monday, members on behalf of Liss Community Association asked for a grant to help with the work, which would expand the cramped office area at the Triangle. Trustee Colin Dring asked the council to donate £2,000 to the Mill Road project, in the hope that it could secure a further grant from East Hampshire District Council, which would double that figure. Hampshire county councillor Michael Cartwright said that he would be giving a grant of £2,000 towards the project from his personal councillors allowance. Mr Dring said: "The office and storage room is a little larger than a broom cupboard. There is a constant stream of people coming in and it is basically just not fit for the purpose. "We want to increase its size by knocking through into the adjacent room. We have a plan for £14,000, which includes a 12 per cent contingency sum. We have also cut costs by suggesting we could do some of the work ourselves." Liss Parish Council chairman Nigel Paren said: "If we keep back the contingency sum we are going to reduce the the grant from EHDC. I would be in favour of giving the whole grant now." Councillors discussed the possibility of claiming back the contingency money if it was not spent, but agreed not to hold it back if it "damaged the position with EHDC". They agreed to donate the full £2,000. At the meeting, Liss Community Association treasurer Clive Seymour presented the council with the financial report for the Triangle over the past year. It highlighted how the community centre has had to turn to donations from people who have become Friends of the Triangle, and relied on grants from EHDC. Mr Mullenger asked how the Triangle would cope without these grants, and Mr Seymour said he feared they would close. He said the Triangle was seen as a "centre of success", but financial difficulties could see the centre having to be run more like the community centre in Petersfield. Mr Dring said: "There is so much good work done by volunteer organisations that it would be a shame if we just became a community centre like in Petersfield." Another problem the centre faced was the age of their trustees. Mr Dring said: "Earlier this year we carried out a SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – test. The biggest threat is the ageing profile of our trustees." He said that they were looking at ways to address the problem.
