CAMPAIGNERS from the Save our Sports Hall group were out in full force on Saturday at the Dolphin Leisure Centre to raise awareness for the plans to redevelop the centre without providing a sports hall.

Members of the group along with Labour councillors Luke Mallett, Chris Bloore and Michael Thompson, handed out cards to leisure centre users to fill out for their local councillor expressing their views.

Despite a chilly start to the day with snow falling in Bromsgrove, a healthy crowd of campaigners made their presence felt at the Dolphin Centre, talking to people coming out of the martial arts group, badminton, football and soft play sessions taking place in the sports hall, and handing out more than 100 of the cards.

Campaigner Louise Humphries, who organised the protest, said: “I’m hoping it’s going to do something. It’s going to raise awareness of what the council’s doing. I think the council hasn’t informed people properly. They’ve said there’s a new leisure centre, but not that it’s not going to have a sports hall. I think raising awareness is great, and I’m hoping they’ll take notice. It’s not too late. It hasn’t been built. There’s no reason they couldn’t leave space and build a sports hall later when they have the funding.

“A lot of people did know what was going on, and they were saying they thought the decision was madness, but equally there were a lot of people who didn’t know the sports hall was going.”

Bromsgrove District Council has already taken a final vote on the redevelopment of the Dolphin Centre site, with plans approved for a new £13 million leisure centre, which does not include a replacement sports hall, or space for one to be built on the site, but instead relies on a deal with BAM which manages the sports hall at North Bromsgrove High School, to use their facilities on evenings and weekends.

However the deal with BAM, which has been in progress for a number of years, is still yet to be finalised, leaving many people with concerns that the centre might be left without sports hall facilities at all.

Louise added: “It’s all ages using the sports hall, it’s all the community, and it’s used all the time. We were talking about going on with the cards. We’ve got over 1,000 printed out, but we can get more.”

Campaigners will be handing the completed cards over to Bromsgrove District Council on Wednesday’s meeting of the full council at the Parkside Centre, and they are looking for businesses and shops around Bromsgrove, which might be willing to stock a number of the cards so that more people can fill them out.

If anyone would like to put a number of the cards in their shop or business, they can contact Louise via the group’s Facebook page ‘Save our Sports Hall – Bromsgrove’.