Amersham's community facility on hold until 2016

10:24am Wednesday 19th November 2008

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PLANS for a new million-pound youth club and community centre in Amersham will not go ahead for at least eight years.

The scheme – known as the 'Barn Meadow Project' – has been severely hit by the credit crunch.

Amersham Town Council said this week it had no choice but to shelve the plans – although they are still hopeful the project can go ahead in the future.

The new facility would have included a community centre, town council office and replacement building for the 61 Youth Club, along with changing rooms for sports teams.

It would have been built at Barn Meadow, in the Old Town, on council-owned land.

The youth club's current premises were condemned as “unfit for purpose” earlier this year.

Mayor Martin King said he was bitterly disappointed the plans have had to be put on hold, but said he had no choice.

He told the Bucks Free Press: “I'm still in full favour of it and I would have loved to have seen it go ahead. But I can't put the cost of it on the people of Amersham.

“I hope it will still be done – it's what the community really needs.”

Cllr King said he had hoped the new facility would have been ready next year – when the council's lease for their current offices at the law courts in King George V Road expires.

But if the Barn Meadow Project had gone ahead in the meantime, the council would still be paying for the lease at the law court and wasting money.

Rents and rates in the town would have to be put up in order to help pay for the lease.

Cllr King said the council would instead remain where it was until the end of a renewed lease – which would be in 2016.

He said: “The only reason that's stopped us is the climate. Everybody's in trouble and we can't be seen, as a responsible council, to be asking people for more money.

“It would have meant we would have had to put up our precept and our rates but we've kept it down because of the credit crunch.”