Kingsway Community Centre will make way for affordable housing

Members of Warwick District Council’s planning committee last Tuesday voted unanimously in favour of the granting planning permission for the development, which will include two thee-bedroomed houses, two two-bedroomed, five two-bedroomed apartments and a car park on the site of the former Kingsway Community Centre in Edinburgh Crescent, Leamington.

People in the area formed The Kingsway Community Centre Reinstatement Committee in a bid to save the site and have it put back to use but this did not stop the Brunswick ward’s Labour councillors Alan Wilkinson, Balvinder Gill and Jane Knight from supporting the proposal.

Speaking at the meeting Cllr Wilkinson said: “This application is dear to my heart and one that I have been actively involved in since its inception. There is a history of opposition from locals and the loss of a community facility is not something we should take lightly.

“The centre has lain dormant since February 2009 and only became something that was thought to be worthy of campaigning for when plans for its demolition and replacement with housing were announced.

“For us the choice was simple, what is more important - a social club or nine desperately needed homes for families on our housing waiting list? For us it was a no-brainer. The crying need for affordable housing is so heart-wrenching to have acted otherwise in order to secure votes would, in our opinion, have been unethical and despicable.”

Cllr Wilkinson added that council leader Cllr Michael Doody (Con, Radford Semele) had spoken to residents about the authority’s duty to address the housing shortage and that a flat had been offered by the council for use by the community but that this offer had not been taken up.

Cllr Alan Rhead (Con, Budbrooke) said: “I am more than happy to support this scheme and I agree with what Councillor Wilkinson has said. For people to object because if a community centre which the community has not had any interest in does not make any sense.”

The council’s head of housing and property service Jameel Malik said in March that a survey carried out after the centre closed was never acted on because of council leadership changes. The survey showed that 49 per cent of residents would use the community centre if it was reopened and improved.