A mother from Bordon thinks Everyone Active is not living up to its name at Alton Sports Centre.

Elese Reed, who has an autistic five-year-old daughter called Emmie, is angry that the centre will not devote one of its 279 hours of monthly soft play provision to a session for neurodiverse children.

The adjustments required include reducing the number of children using the play frame to 20, dimming the lights and turning off the radio.

Elese said: “They said there weren’t enough neurodiverse children to justify it, based on one session put on during the school day. If you asked the parents of other neurodiverse children, they would definitely go.

“We like going to Alton Sports Centre because Emmie is familiar with it. It’s the frustration of not being heard and being fobbed off. They have the disability lanyard in their window - it’s so hypocritical. They are supposed to be ‘Everyone’ Active.

“I took Emmie to a neurodiverse panto at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking, it was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Lesley Joseph was The Wicked Queen. Before the show she came on stage to explain to the children that she was just acting wicked. They put the lights on and let the children move around more. It doesn’t take much - if a theatre can do it, why not a leisure centre?”

Chris West - contract manager for Everyone Active, which runs Alton Sports Centre on behalf of East Hampshire District Council - said: “We continually review our activity programme in order to ensure it meets the needs of people from across the local community.

“We are proud to run a variety of inclusive sessions across East Hampshire, including weekly inclusive soft play and bouncy castle sessions at the nearby Taro Leisure Centre.

“We will advise our customers of any changes to activity programming in the future.”