Campaigners throw down the gauntlet (From Bournemouth Echo)

Campaigners throw down the gauntlet

7:00am Friday 10th July 2009 in

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CAMPAIGNERS fighting plans to turn a former Boscombe Arts Centre into a children and families centre have challenged council leaders to face them at a public meeting next week.

Friends of the Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts, who have fought to turn the building into a community centre, directly appealed to Bournemouth Council leader Cllr Stephen MacLoughlin and deputy John Beesley to think again and “respect the wishes of the community”.

Bournemouth Council’s cabinet will be asked, on July 22, to approve plans for an integrated services hub in the former Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts building in Haviland Road.

The council hopes to use a £2.3 million Government grant to create a new base for a multi-agency team which supports children, young people and families and include some adult services. The Friends of BCCA, Boscombe Traders Association and other protesters say that it will cater for offenders on probation including drug and alcohol abusers.

Council deputy leader John Beesley, however, denied that this was the case and said the hub was “excellent news” for residents of Boscombe.

The council is working with the Friends to find an alternative venue for their community centre he added. “I think they agreed with the way forward that we were taking on the basis that we are going to continue to look with them for premises suitable for the kind of community centre they propose to run.”

If the Friends are now unhappy with that then the council will talk to them again he said.

“It’s absolutely not the case that it’s going to be some kind of drop-in centre. It’s the last thing we want to do,” he added.

The Friends want councillors, community groups and residents to join them for “an open and frank discussion” at a public meeting in the Portland Hotel in Ashley Road, Boscombe, at 7.30pm next Thursday.

The Friends say they have the backing of Boscombe Traders Association, Boscombe Spa Resorts, doctors and health professionals, MP Tobias Ellwood and more than 1000 residents.

In a statement they said: “In our view the council’s plan of combining agencies working with drug and alcohol abusers, ex-offenders, children and young people deemed at risk of offending as well as families is, at best, a very ill-advised combination for the site.”