Huge thanks to everyone who has now signed the petition to save The Kingfisher Leisure Centre

Please make it a priority to share the petition with everyone you can so that more and more people understand what is at stake if the Council moves forwards with its plans to demolish this vital community facility

More than 1300 people have now signed to save The Kingfisher, a councillor has resigned because of what he calls the "dishonest" plans for the leisure centre (see picture) and it has been announced by The Green Party that the Council intends to concrete over some of The Fairfield - the green space opposite The Kingfisher - in order to build a tower up to 18 storeys high on The ancient Cattle Market site, adjacent to The Kingfisher Leisure Centre

It should be noted that The Fairfield is the designated local green space for 3300 new residents on the soon-to-be-demolished-and-rebuilt-at-three-times-density Cambridge Road Estate in addition to many new residents in a high-rise tower that is going to be built next to the new Unilever HQ, a vast number of new residents in The Old Post Office development already looming over the town, new residents in the Eden Walk development, and new residents in the forthcoming Surrey County Hall redevelopment

One standard for outdoor space is that there should be ONE ACRE of park or playground per 100 population plus another acre of large city or regional park on the outskirts of the city for more extensive types of recreational use. This means that the new residents on the Cambridge Road Estate alone would need 33 acres of outdoor local space for recreational purposes excluding access to similar amounts of space within a regional park such as Richmond Park

The Fairfield is only 12.5 acres in size

We can see how the plans to demolish The Kingfisher on a massive scale are linked to plans for the redevelopment of not just that site and the adjacent Cattle Market site but of the whole Kingston Town area

1500 signatures on the petition will make it easier to get press interest on this terrible threat to community facilities in the Royal Borough

Please keep sharing the petition and asking people to sign it and join in the fight to preserve vital community sports and recreational facilities for people from all over Kingston