PLANS for Alton’s £20m state-of-the-art leisure centre were given the final go-ahead on Monday, paving the way for work to start and the new facility to be open for business by the end 2019.

The new centre will be built alongside the existing facility in Chawton Park Road to ensure continuous service and is aimed, according to East Hampshire District Council (EHDC), at encouraging more people to get “more active, more often”.

While coming as a cause for celebration for some, Monday’s decision was received with a sense of deep disappointment by those who believe that the facility, however strong on ‘quality’, will not provide the long-term benefits for a growing community in terms of sport provision.

Deferred by EHDC’s planning committee on February 12 in order for the applicant (SLM Ltd, trading as Everyone Active) to demonstrate “quantifiable evidence” of how it has engaged the relevant stakeholders in mitigating planning policies relating to like-for-like provision, the application had been brought back with a 790-page document that EHDC officers believed would successfully address this concern.

Not according to Alex Golding. Speaking on behalf of objectors, the chairman of Alton Sports Centre Action Group said that nowhere in this documentation was there evidence of the concerns expressed by stakeholders, “still less any account of how such concerns were to be addressed”.

Alton Sports Centre Action Group was firm in its belief that the outline application had indicated that the facilities mix would be a matter for discussion as part of the current reserve matters application, but the signing of the contract between EHDC and Everyone Active on April 1, 2017, had removed that opportunity.

In the action group’s view, the proposed facility was “simply not big enough”, with 1,000 square metres of space dedicated to non-sports activity, providing less space for sport than currently exists at a time when club waiting lists were increasing (225 for gymnastics alone) and the population of Alton and the villages expanding.

Speaking on behalf of Alton Town Council, Peter Hicks said there was concern over potential conflict of interest when EHDC, which has a commercial contract with the applicant, had “provided that same applicant with the bulk of evidence” within the 790-page report. He suggested that, should approval be granted, EHDC could be open to legal challenge on grounds of legitimate expectation by the public.

It was not a concern held by ward councillor Graham Hill who was satisfied the cause for referral had been addressed and warned that refusal to grant permission would delay the project by months.

On behalf of SLM Ltd, regional contract manager Ian Cook re-emphasised his company’s track record as a leisure facility provider, and felt the proposed new centre would ensure a balanced facilities mix that would meet the needs of the community while “maximising the commercial return”, supporting EHDC in its bid to achieve “medium and long-term financial plans”.

While Alton’s concern was once again fought by local representatives Andrew Joy and Dean Phillips, supported by Charles Louisson (Ropley), the majority of councillors took the line that Alton was a small market town and should expect a sports centre to reflect its size; that facilities mix had changed since 1973 and would be different; and that the name of the game was compromise and the need for the centre to pay its way.

While at the heart of concerns was for the adequacy of sporting provision, councillors were reminded that facilities mix was not within the remit of the committee to discuss, although scale was, and that the overwhelming principle was “to provide a facility for the whole community”.

Mr Joy stuck to his guns, arguing and voting against approval on grounds that local objectors felt they had not been consulted and that the proposed facility could not provide adequate replacement facilities either in terms of capacity or range of provision.

He said after the meeting: “In the absence of any credible or material evidence that the proposal had been informed by consultation, as explicitly referred to in the outline application of August 2015, I concluded that the application had failed to demonstrate that the proposed development would provide either equivalent or improved alternative community leisure facilities in terms of both quality and quantity” and would be contrary to planning policy.

Mr Phillips remained concerned over the scale of the building next to Cardiac Rehab and the on-going flooding problem, and he argued that an expectation had been set, at the outline stage, that there would be further public consultation by the applicant, citing the case of R (Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council 2008 which had thrown up a legal challenge on grounds of pre-determination and legitimate public expectation.

But EHDC’s legal team felt confident there would be no grounds for a judicial review.

The application was passed with one vote against (Joy) and two abstentions (Phillips and Louisson).

EHDC leader Richard Millard said: “The new agreement with Everyone Active will mean that for the first time the centre will be self-funding and, over the life of the contract, will not cost the taxpayer a penny. In fact it will generate income to pay for other public services in the area and keep council tax low.”