THERE have been celebrations all round for Whitehill Club this week, after finally being told that its plans for a new home have been approved.

Members of the club learned at the weekend that East Hampshire District Council had finally granted planning permission for a new Whitehill Club building which, it is hoped, will become a gateway for Bordon and Whitehill.

The news comes after negotiations to appease planners' fears over the provision of car parking on the site.

Club president Brian Seager said that he and members of the club were thrilled with news.

He said: "We are obviously very pleased to hear this, and in fact I announced it to the members of the club at the weekend, which was great.

"We are meeting with our project manager to sort out exactly what goes where and then we will put out the contracts for tender.

"We are hopeful that it will all be finished by next April."

The new building will replace the clubhouse that was gutted in a late-night fire in January last year.

With a wave-roof design, the new club building will boast a steel structure with cedar panelling.

When the plans were unveiled in April Mr Seager said: "It will be a gateway to Bordon and Whitehill. When you are driving up from Petersfield this will be the first thing you will see to indicate that you have arrived in Whitehill."

The building will also include a function room, a lounge bar and a games room

Part of the club will be elevated so that the lounge bar overlooks a play area outside, with the overall building being around the same size as the previous one.

The new design came after months of negotiations over a budget.

But gaining planning permission is just the first step in a long-term project to rejuvenate the club, which was also hit last year when travellers stayed at the site for a couple of weeks, leaving behind a trail of rubbish and destruction.

Members of Whitehill Club hope to refurbish the neighbouring bungalow, which is still standing, using the frame of the existing building.

It is also hoped that the club can re-lay the bowling green and repair the play equipment, which was also damaged while the travellers were on the site.

However plans for the sports pavilion, which was the scene of a second fire last year, are not yet clear.

But it is hoped that club members and members of the club's many sports teams will come flocking back once the new club building is open.

Mr Seager said: "It has been difficult for our members who have had to travel elsewhere. Our snooker club have to travel to Grayshott for their home games.

"We have been fortunate in that we have been able to get together at BOSC to socialise and we are very grateful to them. I know that I have thanked them before but it cannot be said enough."

For members, news that the new club building has been granted permission was described as being the "icing on the cake" by Gill Bennett, who is on the club's entertainment committee.

She helped organise a fun day on Saturday which featured a range of activities aimed at keeping up the club's spirit.

"The reason behind the fun day was to get everybody together who may not have seen each other for a while," she explained.

"We had a tombola, a barbecue, and refreshments and we played bingo. There was a free quiz, we had lots of fun and everybody said that it was good that we could get all get together.

"It was the icing on the cake really, to be able to tell them we had got planning permission for the club. We all let out a big cheer."

Gill Bennett said she plans to organise a range of activities for club members, to keep them involved until the new building is opened.