ALTON Sports Centre Action Group will continue its fight for “the right sports centre for Alton” by staging a “peaceful and friendly” demonstration outside East Hampshire District Council’s headquarters at Penns Place in Petersfield next week.

Driven by the desire to do the right thing for the community, campaigners will be beseeching councillors on Monday to turn down proposals for a ‘leisure’ centre and to push instead for “a future-proofed community sports centre for Alton”.

Monday’s demonstration will be a last-ditch attempt to persuade EHDC’s planning committee to “think again” about the long-term impact of settling for a facility that the action group believes will not meet local need and, some fear, would “devastate local sport for generations to come”.

Families and children who use the current sports centre are inviting others to join them on the steps of Penns Place from 5.15pm prior to the planning meeting at 6pm, which will decide the future of Alton’s ability to nurture and inspire budding young sportsmen and women in the town for the next half century.

Launched last month as “a voice for the community”, the Alton Sports Centre Action Group comprises residents, families and organisations who are concerned that if councillors approve the reserve matters application they will let a “brilliant opportunity pass to provide an amazing legacy for Alton” in the form of a sports facility to be proud of.

While action group members believe the new centre should be inclusive and available for everyone, and should contain an element of leisure activities, their fear is that the facility being proposed will be inadequate from day one and will not meet current sporting needs, let alone those of the anticipated population growth for the town and surrounding villages.

Alton Sports Centre Action Group chairman Alex Golding said the response to the campaign has been “staggering”.

“The groundswell of support for our cause is growing by the day,” he added.

But this determination to secure the best result for Alton is tempered by a feeling of dismay at EHDC’s approach.

“More and more people see the prospect of EHDC approving what are effectively its own plans as quite perverse. How the planning committee can look at these proposals objectively at Monday’s planning meeting is impossible to comprehend,” said Mrs Golding.

“This lack of objectivity leaves a number of questions unanswered: why has no-one explained the glaring inconsistency between what was promised over two years ago, against what is being presented to the committee on Monday? It was never the intention to include detail of the proposed facilities in the outline application in August 2015. In fact the report said ‘it is noted that objections to the proposal have been received from third parties relating to the precise details of the facilities to be incorporated into the replacement building. These include detailed specifications for the swimming pool and the inclusion of a climbing wall. Full details of the facilities to be provided would be set out within a reserved matters application, following consultation with interested parties’.”

However, the facilities mix was already agreed upon last year when a contract was signed between EHDC and leisure provider Everyone Active – without public consultation.

Mrs Golding continued: “The future purpose of the reserved matters application could not have been clearer, yet these promises have been broken. Instead, we are told that the overall scale of the building is considered to be acceptable, which for objectors it clearly is not.”

She also flags up “the impasse” that exists between EHDC and the Cardiac Rehab Centre next door where there are “long-standing land ownership issues” that yet have to be resolved.

“These are serious anomalies, and they have to be resolved before any legitimate decision can be made,” she said.