Please keep sharing the petition and donate to get a legal opinion from Jenny Wigley QC of Landmark Chambers on whether the council's decision to demolish is legally sound

Last night Kingston Council slammed the door shut on democratic pleas that they stop their plans to demolish our Kingfisher Leisure Centre and to do so with no certain replacement, leaving a legal challenge the only option left to stop them now

On 1 September 2021, Kingston Council approved its own planning application to demolish The Kingfisher Leisure centre in Kingston town centre

Yesterday, on 12 October, 2021, I presented a petition signed by nearly 3,600 people against the demolition to Full Council but the Liberal Democratic administration refused to be bowed, insisting instead that The Kingfisher needs to be demolished without delay with no reasonable justification for their plans

This decision leaves residents exposed to the massive risks of:

1.       being left with no leisure facilities in Kingston 

2.       facing high rise development on an ever-increasing scale in order to fund any new facilities the Council wants to build, and

3.       a council under massive financial pressure that is prepared to take on more and more debt and to allocate an additional and unfunded £40 million* to a vanity project that ordinary residents do not need or want

We were never consulted on the demolition and the council never resolved to demolish The Kingfisher. But the council simply does not care 

Please donate now to help fund an opinion on whether there are grounds for a legal challenge of Kingston Council’s decision to demolish The Kingfisher Leisure Centre

Thank you

*The council is already ready facing losses from their commercial property venture and a projected £50 million deficit on their massive Cambridge Road Estate regeneration plans. In addition, the September 30th report to Corporate and Resources Committee in which the council added an unfunded budget of £40 million for a possible new leisure centre looks madly optimistic. The council only has £20 million general reserves and is forecasting £13 million overspends in property, place, children's services, adults's social care and schools alone this financial year. In this context, the decision to demolish looks crazy when the council could repair the Kingfisher's roof and reopen the leisure centre