AN Alton woman is fighting the corner for all sports centre users by championing the launch of Alton Sports Centre Action Group – an organisation driven by a single goal: “To unite and achieve a future-proofed sports centre in Alton, befitting of our current and growing community.”

A community interest organisation, designed to provide “a voice for the community”, the action group is “one hundred per cent committed to influencing the decision of the (planning) approval process for a positive outcome”.

Mum of two Alex Golding and her family are regular users of Alton Sports Centre and she believes the community should pull together to get a new facility that will continue to support the town’s reputation as a centre for sporting achievement.

She said: “Alton has a proud sporting heritage and our existing centre is the cradle for four current British and UK youth team members and Olympic hopefuls covering four different sports, and with our growing community, sport and fitness is vital for the overall wellbeing of our community.”

Appointed chairman of the action group management committee, Mrs Golding says the group is made up of “local community groups, sporting bodies and concerned individuals who are clear that the current proposals for a new sports centre will not be fit for current and future users”.

Explaining her own involvement, she said: “We are all aware that the existing sports centre is old, expensive to maintain and in dire need of replacement, but at the same time it is bursting at the seams in terms of usage.

“We have outgrown the centre, ostensibly because of its general state of disrepair but also because the clubs and classes are horribly oversubscribed, with huge waiting lists; there is insufficient parking and there is no provision for current sports represented there to grow or new sports to enter the mix because of lack of useable space. For these reasons, people who may wish to use the space travel elsewhere for their sporting and leisure activities.”

As a consequence, Mrs Golding believes the usage figures, used by centre operator Everyone Active and owner, East Hampshire District Council (EHDC), “cannot be truly representative of our ever-increasing community or a reliable platform on which to prepare plans for its replacement”.

She suggests that “a new, much larger centre than what’s proposed, and the right balance of sporting activities available to all could potentially generate much larger profitable returns than they had anticipated”.

As a group, according to Mrs Golding, Alton Sports Centre Action Group has “identified major faults and problems with the plans” and the group intends to engage with EHDC and its preferred provider, Everyone Active, to urge them “to look again at what is proposed”.

Mrs Golding said: “As a user of the current centre, I am very conscious of how the plans do not meet future use for both me and my children. And I know I’m not alone.”

Fellow action group committee member Charlotte Mackenzie Crooks, a mum of two and chairman of Chawton Pre-school, says she is acutely aware of how important it is to engage children with sport and fitness activities at an early age so that it becomes a natural and fun part of their everyday lives.

The Mackenzie Crooks are all regular users of the sports centre and were “delighted to hear that the run down, existing centre was to be replaced by a new facility” but “shocked to discover that far from increasing access to sport, the new centre, with its vast spa, was actually going to reduce the amount of space available to sports, get rid of a diving pool, two squash courts, an outdoor pitch, an exercise studio and the crèche”.

She said: “In the face of a countrywide obesity epidemic, I believe we should be attempting to build sporting facilities that not only match our existing provision but are fit for our fast-growing local population and that will encourage our children to be fit and healthy now and in the future.”

Mrs Golding said: “The aim of the new action group is to ensure a new sports centre is fit for purpose in its provision for competitive sport, and be future-proof for an expanding population. Alternative ways of meeting this requirement might be to look again at the layout and reverse the proposed space ratio from one-third sports activities and two-thirds leisure activities. This may involve building a third floor or even a move to a different site.

Mrs Golding said: “Alton Sports Centre Action Group believes the number of objections to the current proposals clearly shows the strength of feeling in the town, and that it’s not too late to press for a change of direction. This is a project that will have major ramifications way into the future, and we must get it right.”

With the reserve matters application for the new sports centre due to come before EHDC’s planning committee within the next few weeks, the action group wants to encourage people to make their voices heard by writing to planning committee members. For information on how to do this, visit ascag.co.uk.