BASINGSTOKE’S ice rink could close in six months’ time unless urgent interventions are made, a council meeting has heard.


The owner of the Leisure Park facility, Standard Securities, is in discussions with tenant Planet Ice about changing the use of the building and even shutting it down unless funds are found to carry out repairs. 


This emerged during a council meeting where chair of the Ice Rink Users’ Forum Sally Cashman asked Basingstoke council what powers they had to save it.


Council officer Kate Dean said she had asked Planet Ice to make requests to the council in writing. 


Cllr Jack Cousens accused the council administration of being “asleep at the wheel” and urged the authority to step in to take action. 

 

You can read the full story in this week’s edition of The Gazette. Also in this week's paper:

  • The Gazette spoke to football fans who, despite the wet weather and dissappointing score, were excited to be supporting their team back in the town at their first home match at Winklebury. 
  • A Basingstoke junior football star says she is “ecstatic” to have been signed for Southampton FC.
  • Struggling children will receive funding for free meals for the rest of this week as the county council has u-turned following public pressure.
  • Basingstoke’s MP has defended her decision to vote down the policy to offer poor children free school meals during the holidays. 
  • The two sites in the running to be the new home of healthcare for North Hampshire have been revealed.
  • People lined the street outside Castle Hill Schools on Friday afternoon to pay tribute to a beloved lollipop lady who passed away earlier this month.
  • Ward councillor Gary Watts is urging the public to help save the Camrose from development by writing to the council to remove it from the Local Plan.
  • A teen drug dealer suspected to have killed a rival runner after an attempted robbery was found slumped against a road sign after being stabbed, a court has heard.
  • PLUS: All the latest from the North Hampshire courts.
  • Two pages of your letters to the editor.
  • Pictures: A selection of haunted snaps from this month's 'spooky' camera club challenge 
  • Two pages of news from our communities.
  • An eight-page puzzle special.
  • Three pages of entertainment news.
  • An twelve-page special shining a light on the work of carers in the community during the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Four pages of sports news. And much more!

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