On January 4th a consultation meeting at
Ashington Leisure Centre in Northumberland was held by the Lib/Dem leadership
of the County Council to "discuss" the question of its closure. The council has to find £33m worth of cuts
this year and amongst the many services being targeted is the town’s very
popular and highly used leisure centre.
Around 3-400 people turned up on the night to hear council leader Simon
Reed trying to make the case for its closure only to face a barrage of
questions and counter arguments from a very angry audience. Amongst the crowd was a significant group of youth who are regular users of the centre who
chanted slogans and barracked the Liberals as they left the building. Around 10-12 young people, mainly from the
High School across the park from the centre, were very angry and gave the
Lib/Dems an ear bashing they wont forget in a hurry. Following on from this two of the young
people, Adam and Thomas, both aged 15, set up a Facebook page called Save
Ashington Leisure Centre which, as we go to press,has almost 3,000 friends and a petition has also
been launched which has hundreds of signatures already. The Liberals, having felt the wrath of the
public and the grim determination of the youth, have backed off and given the
centre a stay of execution till April 2011.
This has not taken the steam out of the campaign but has galvanized the
young people into even more activity.
After linking up with the local Trades
Council in the county they called another public meeting which met last Monday
18th January. Around 150 attended and
heard Adam, along with other labour movement leaders and LRC supporters, speak
from the platform where he put the case for the centre and called on the County
Council to withdraw the threat of closure completely and demand that much
needed investment in the centre be brought forward. Many at the meeting spoke in defense of the
centre and condemned the cuts and afterwards several people came forward to
join the campaign committee. The youth
themselves have established their own committee to draw more and more young
people into activity and so far 10 or so names have already come forward to get
involved. The leading youth understand
the need to link up with different sections of the community, in particular
with the TUs who they see as taking the brunt of the cuts through job
losses. The work they have done is now
paying off with the temporary back down by the council and the fact that they
now have the support of local cricketing hero Steve Harmison and Ashington
football legend Jack Charlton. "The
only way to get the council to back down is if the whole community gets behind
the campaign!" said Adam Nichol.
"This is our centre, our mams and dads have used this centre when
they were kids, and we want our kids to be able to use it in the
future!"
Future protests being
organised are a lobby of the council executive in Morpeth on Friday, 29th Jan
at 12 noon and the a lobby of the full council on Wed 10th of February where
the council will be setting its annual budget.
