ALTON Cricket Club is breathing a huge sigh of relief after Alton Town Council agreed to replace the showers at the Harry Baker Pavilion in time for the start of the new season on April 29.

The showers have to be in and working before the club’s first home league game on May 6 or it could risk being kicked out of the Southern Premier League.

Crucial to the future of the club, an extraordinary full town council meeting was called on Tuesday night when councillors gave the go ahead to spend £48,000 on replacing the water systems at both Jubilee Field pavilions, in a bid to minimise the risk of legionella and improve the aesthetics of the buildings, helping to extend their lifespan by up to 10 years.

The two pavilions have been in place since the 1960s and are coming to the end of their useful life.

The subject of regular inspections, as the owner of the buildings Alton Town Council had made the decision to decommission the showers in January this year, based on the findings of an independently appointed legionella risk assessment carried out by Bradley Environmental Consultants Limited.

While the toilets, changing rooms and communal areas of each pavilion remain in use as the cold water system is useable, according to a report by town clerk Leah Coney it is the hot water system, fed by storage tanks, which cause an increased risk of legionella.

For the cricket club, this was a major blow. A thriving and successful club which has four teams – the first and second XI playing at the highest level in the Southern Premier League, plus 250 Colts up to age 18, three girls and a ladies’ side, Alton Cricket Club hires both pavilions under licence from the town council, and last year won the league award for the ‘most improved ground’.

This, said club chairman Richard Myers, was not just based on the state of the pitch and the outfield but on the fact that the club had invested a considerable amount of time and money (around £12,000) on updating and decorating the changing, club rooms and bar area at the Harry Baker pavilion, used for league matches.

At the meeting, Mrs Coney told councillors that the requirement for Southern Premier League Cricket and Hampshire Cricket was “quite prescriptive in that showers must be provided on site, within the curtilage of the cricket ground” which precluded the option of using Alton Sports Centre facilities.

The cost of replacing the water systems in each pavilion was expected be in the region of £19,000 per building which was initially deemed not viable as Section 106 developers’ contributions would not be released as the two pavilions were almost past their sell-by date.

As a result, Mrs Coney had researched other options, including the bringing forward of a new pavilion and using temporary shower facilities in the meantime to ensure sports teams remained on the site and were not forced to find alternative premises.

If Alton Cricket Club was to vacate the site due to lack of facilities it would, pointed out Mrs Coney, “waste the considerable resources and time over the last few years put into improving the ground for cricket and the S106 monies spent last autumn on phase two of upgrading the wicket (total cost of £9,500).”

Also lost would be the £6,500 annual income generated from the hire of the facilities to the cricket club.

Other options looked at included the reinstatement of the pitch at Anstey Park but the wicket would need to be relaid and would take three years to establish to the level required for Premier League matches, so that was out.

While Alton Town Council has £250,000 in dedicated S106 monies to put toward a new pavilion at Jubilee Fields, these funds are tied into the Miller Homes development in Anstey Lane (£47,000) and the Will Hall Farm development (£200,000) and could take up to three years to release.

To go ahead now with the building of a new £495,000 pavilion would require the taking out of a public loan board loan and the installation for the next two years of temporary showers, at an additional cost of £15,000. This option was also dismissed which left councillors to vote on whether to replace the water systems at a cost of £38,000 or to replace the water systems and improve the aesthetics of the two pavilions at a cost of £48,000.

While Alton Cricket Club had confirmed that it would be willing to contribute £2,000 to assist with the work, Mrs Coney confirmed that the funding could be met via savings of approximately £42,000 from the 2016/17 budget, plus £10,000 from the town council’s 2017/18 Project Fund.

It was agreed unanimously to go for the £48,000 option which would serve to extend the life of the two pavilions, giving the town council more time to raise the money to rebuild.

Commenting on behalf of Alton Cricket Club, Mr Myers said he was “relieved” by the decision which, as long as work was finished on the Harry Baker Pavilion by the start of the new season would enable the cricket club to keep its place in the Premier League and enable members to reap the benefits of the time and money invested in the pavilion over the past 12 months.