Campaign to build leisure centre is closer to victory; pounds 8m proposal includes pool.

Byline: BY BEN SCHOFIELD Daily Post Staff

A DECADES-LONG campaign to build a leisure centre in Maghull could take a step towards victory tomorrow.

Sefton Council's planning committee will meet to discuss plans for a complex including a swimming pool, library and museum.

Councillors are being advised to approve the pounds 8m proposals and campaigners hope the building, next to Maghull Town Hall, will be ready by the end of October, 2009.

The town has never had a leisure centre and the plans represent the final piece in Sefton's masterplan to provide facilities in each of the borough's urban areas.

The centre would be the fourth built in recent years after sites in Bootle, Southport and Crosby.

Cllr Lord Ronnie Fearn, Sefton's former cabinet member for leisure and tourism, who was involved in drawing up the plans for Maghull, said: "We've been working on this for three years but it's always been there in the back of our minds.

"But once we got three complexes finished we went for the fourth. We said that each district should have its own swimming baths and Maghull is the last, so it's a jigsaw falling into place."

The leisure centre would have a five-lane, 25m swimming pool, an llm learner pool, a health suite and a fitness suite across two floors.

A 475sqm library with books for teens, a children's area and an express lending section will be built to replace the town's Liverpool Road North library.

Planners also want to include space for a museum dedicated to train-set giant Hornby. The Kent-based firm was originally started in Liverpool by Frank Hornby.

There could also be a courtyard area for outdoor seating between the complex and the Town Hall.

The King George V playing fields on Town Hall Lane have been earmarked for the complex. It would be connected to the Town Hall by a curved link corridor and would be built out of a mixture of brick, wood, rain screening and glass for the walls.

Cllr Geoff Howe, chair of Sefton East Parishes area committee, which covers Maghull, remembers Maghull residents lobbying for a leisure centre in the 1970s.

He told the Daily Post: "It's the end of a long, long campaign.

"We're the only area not to have a leisure centre at the moment. It will be a wonderful facility for Aintree, Melling and Maghull."

The 40,000 population of Maghull have to use facilities in Ormskirk and Kirkby for swimming.

This is a jigsaw falling into place

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CAPTION(S):

An artist's impression of the proposed leisure centre in Maghull