PROPOSALS for a new sports centre in Alton came a step closer last Thursday when East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) planners agreed an outline application to establish the principle of constructing a replacement facility on the existing artificial turf pitch immediately behind the existing building.

The plan would enable the existing centre to continue to function during the construction period, and continue to provide access to the Cardiac Rehab Centre and Alton Tennis Club, as well as the eight houses at Gurdons.

There would be no encroachment onto neighbouring Jubilee Fields, and the entrance and egress from the site would remain the same.

Illustrative only at this stage, with the design, layout and exact relationship to the Rehab building to be determined as reserve matters, the new centre would be a multi-purpose sports facility of up to 8,500 square metres gross external floor area, with parking for up to 250 vehicles, standing alongside outdoor floodlit, fenced synthetic turf pitches.

Once the new building is up and running, the existing building would be demolished to make way for the construction of the artificial pitch area, with parking underneath, to provide around 130 more parking spaces than at present.

To be built on land owned by EHDC and Alton Town Council, case officer Julia Mansi said neither the financing of the new building nor the provision of sporting facilities within it were of material consideration at this point, although the latter would be the subject of future public consultation.

The application was widely welcomed, with councillors recognising that having been built in the early 1970s with money accrued by the then Alton Urban District Council, the existing sports centre was “well past its sell-by date” and the replacement “long overdue”.

Alton Town Council leader Peter Hicks said that the authority welcomed the fact that the a sports centre was to be built adjacent to the existing building in an area which forms a sporting “hub”. Considered as “an essential facility” for the town and the surrounding area, Alton Town Council was adamant that the facilities should be “equal to or better than those currently on offer in order to meet the demands of an expanding population”.

It was a sentiment echoed by district and town councillor Graham Hill, who was delighted that East Hampshire District Council had opted for the replacement option, as supported by Alton’s emerging neighbourhood plan, and he stressed the need for wider public and stakeholder consultation when it came to discussing the facilities that should be offered by the new centre, drawing particular attention to the need for an eight-lane pool.

He said: “This sports centre will represent a huge investment, in fact the biggest investment in Alton in many years, probably since the building of the original centre, and we really need to get it right.”

Mr Hill’s district and county colleague, Andrew Joy, agreed, adding his concerns that it would be important to take into account the traffic impact on Chawton Park Road, particularly during the construction period.

The one dissenting voice, while supportive of the need for a new sports centre, came from Cardiac Rehab representative Chris Youngs, himself a former sports centre manager whose concern was that the height, scale and close proximity of the proposed new building would have a “significant and negative impact” on Rehab users.

He said he could see a 20-metre high wall, or swimming pool glass, standing within 10 metres of the Rehab bungalow, resulting in disruptive noise and overshadowing.

But the case officer assured him that concerns of this kind could be dealt with under reserved matters and that the design, layout and exact placement of the building on the site was “not set in stone”.

What the outline application did was to establish the principle of development in order to keep the existing centre open during the construction period to allow a new one to be built alongside – a principle that received a unanimous thumbs up.