The following press release has been issued by BANES Council following over 1000 signatures on a local petition to keep a viewing gallery and sports hall for the new sports centre:
Council listening carefully to local views as part of Keynsham Leisure Centre consultation
Bath & North East Somerset Council is listening carefully to the views of local people about plans for new leisure facilities in Keynsham, residents have been assured.
Some provisional ideas were put forward at a consultation event in Keynsham on September 15, when residents were asked to give their views on a number of key issues that will form part of the Placemaking Plan. This plan, together with the Core Strategy, will help shape what development takes place, and where.
However, the Council has stressed that no decisions have been taken over either the location of the new leisure centre, or what sports facilities will be included in the final plans.
Councillor Martin Veal (Conservative, Bathavon North), the Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Services said: “We’d like to thank residents for all the responses we’ve received to this consultation on the future of leisure facilities in Keynsham, and would like to reassure local people that this is just the very start of the consultation process.
“Firstly we have to consider the location as part of the Placemaking Plan, and the responses we received from local people at that meeting will be fed into that process.
“Once we have identified a potential location, further consultation will take place, and the input we’ve now had from local people will be very helpful in shaping our plans. The new facility is not planned to be in place until 2018.”
The draft Placemaking Plan will be subject to a further seven-week consultation which will start later this year, prior to submission to the Secretary of State.