The Council also agreed that they will work with the Community Centre Management to maximise the use of the ground floor of the building,  but the provision of temporary building to provide space for the existing users may now be curtailed on cost grounds. 

When the lease expires on March 2, 2011, the council will not renew the lease and the building will be closed pending demolition.

The Portchester Liberal Democratic councillors believe that the Community Centre needs to be demolished and to be rebuilt to meet modern day standards. 

We also believe that a youth wing should be included within the new Community Centre as well as the children’s centre.  A new Centre is desperately needed in Portchester to provide facilities for the many Clubs and Groups that use it, at the end of last year the footfall in one week was 3,500. 

We will work tirelessly to make sure we obtain a new Community Centre for Portchester.

The Council has also set up an Advisory Group which includes the five Portchester Ward Councillors, representation from Portchester Community Association and other interested parties as appropriate, to advise on all aspects associated with the feasibility of obtaining funding for and providing replacement community facilities for the Portchester area.

DO WE need more government? Our county council apparently thinks so.

Hampshire county council, led by Tory Cllr  Ken Thornber, spends approximately £4.5 million a year on recruitment & press office spin: they produce glossy magazines of limited readership.

Now Cllr Thornber wants to spend a further £100,000 on setting up a third layer of local government: a so called ‘Senate’ which will be dominated by Tories and of course, Cllr Thornber will chair  the Senate.

As Lib Dem Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne has said: "This is another ludicrous extravagance from the county council that's already bro ught us proposals for a £40million office block with a picture window for the leader to survey his domain across Hampshire.

"I don't think council tax payers want to fund  another layer of government on top of the t wo we have already."

A budget of £100,000 of council taxpayers' money has been earmarked to set this Tory dream up.

This comes from a man who has engineered cutbacks to budgets that could benefit the old and the vulnerable and has only recently reversed that trend: from a man who is quick to bemoan the finances that he says are needed from central government.

At the recent Community Action Team meetings, addressed by members of Fareham Youth Council, the enthusiastic youngsters were told funds were not available for many of the improvements they would like to see for young people. Tory borough councillors shrugged their shoulders and said the County Council - which their party controls - has one of the worst-funded youth services in the country.

But Cllr Thornber says that the new 17 member body, made up largely of Tory borough council leaders, will save "millions" by improving services.

What is perhaps more to the point, it will also pre-empt government moves to create more super, unitary councils, like Southampton and Portsmouth. So where we could have one layer of local government, we will end up with three layers, with three corresponding council tax bills.

One Tory MP has even had the temerity to say that Cllr Thornber "knows what he is doing". Other Tory MPs have side stepped the issue by saying that they 'need to know more' or 'that it's a matter for the council'. That puts them in the category of guilt by association.