Dover District Council's Cabinet decide fate of Deal Sports Club

KentOnline / KMTV

A crunch meeting was held to decide whether the £20 million pound development and 9 month period of closure would still go ahead.  Finn Macdiarmid reports

Transcript

00:00I'm going to get upset now because I've been involved in this club for 40 years and to

00:05go home and have to speak to parents and gymnasts and have to say to them that this place is

00:11now gone. The parents are relying on me tonight and now I'm asking for you guys to put something

00:17in place, I don't care what it is, but to not close this centre.

00:21This is what the nine month closure of Tides Leisure Centre in Deal means to the coaches,

00:25parents, children and other members of the sports clubs.

00:29It's been a night that many members of local Deal community groups have been waiting for

00:33with bated breath. However, they won't know the result as soon as they might have hoped.

00:39While some clubs are able to find other venues during the time when the centre will be without

00:42an operator, it's groups like East Kent Acro Gymnastics Club who have large specialist

00:47equipment and the need for a large hall space that would face disbanding if the closure

00:51were to go ahead.

00:52As a club that's been running for 40 years and 20 of those years have been at Tides,

00:57knowing that actually if it does close, that would mean the end of our club, you can't

01:00just come back. We've got a competition in April, actually where would we train for that

01:04last week? We've got our competition season will start again in October, November, what

01:08are we going to do? It would mean the end. And then who's saying the club would potentially

01:13have to start again, but then where do you start again from? It's, yeah, I don't know

01:18what the answer is.

01:20But last night, Dover District Council held a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee

01:24who heard statements from members of affected sports clubs and voted for the decision to

01:28close the sports hall to be reconsidered by the Cabinet.

01:31The key thing that happened last night is that the Scrutiny Committee heard from many

01:35users and groups at Tides, heard the impact that a closure will have on them. And then

01:41the committee resolved unanimously to ask the Cabinet to take another look at the decision

01:48to consider all the potential options that there are for keeping the centre open.

01:53Last Monday on the 3rd of February, the Cabinet will review that decision and make the choice

01:57on whether to keep the hall open until the new operator takes over in 2026.

02:02For East Kent Acro as well as badminton and tennis groups, the result of the Cabinet's

02:06decision could mean life or death for their clubs. And they'll have to wait another week

02:10to find out the result.

02:12Finn McDermid for CAME TV, in Deal.

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