ALTON Men’s Shed have have embarked upon the second phase of a project to establish a ‘home’ in the town.

A gang of workers arrived at the Alton Maltings Centre to clear out the unused “void” at the northern end of the building, with the aim of turning it into three rooms to use as a place to meet socially, a room to carry out various hobbies and craft-base activities, and a third room for storage.

Led by Gordon Anderson, the team of Peter Bryant, Charles Bailey, Michael Spoors, Bob Joyce, Anthony Salzman, Keith Tomlin, Les Human, Graham Pettitt, John Sibley, Kenny Norgate, John Sills, Ray Philips, Dave Burnham, John Barrett, Sean Jenkins and Peter Beckham donned protective clothing and worked hard to clear the area.

The Men’s Shed has been offered the space by the Grain House Trust, which is responsible for the building, and Mr Barrett helped the team break into the boarded-up area of the building and made it secure again at the end of the day, while the activity was overseen by Sean Jenkins, on behalf of the Trust.

District councillor Edward Brandt popped in to see what progress the team had made – the result being debris piled up awaiting disposal.

In all, according to Mr Anderson, the team filled 200 plastic sacks and all the available storage space along the length of the outside path, so there is nothing more to be done until it has been disposed of.

He said: “The final thrust put in by those who remained until the end enabled us to clear all the chunky debris from the rooms along the north end. What remains is mainly plasterboard pieces and dust, which we will clear after disposing of the first batch of rubbish, and perhaps recovering the plastic bags, or by putting it directly into a skip.”

The next working party is expected to be at the beginning of April.

Grateful thanks have been expressed to the Grain House Trust and to the Alton Maltings Centre committee for offering the use of the facility and for allowing this work to go ahead. Also to iGAS Energy, which runs the Humbly Grove oilfield at Weston Common, Lasham, just north of Alton, and which has just awarded Alton Men’s Club a community grant of £7,500 toward the construction costs at the Maltings.

In the meantime, the first phase of the Men’s Shed project is to build a ‘shed’ in the car park of All Saints’ Church on Queen’s Road, to enable members to engage in small carpentry projects using small hand tools and battery-operated tools, and meeting regularly for tea and coffee in the adjacent parish hall.

The group has planning permission for the construction of the building and is around £2,000 short of achieving its £8,000 build cost. Much of this money has come from councillors, who support the project. Alton Men’s Shed is hoping to start work on the site in late spring or early summer this year.