Snooker players in Portslade are “gutted” to be told that their dedicated venue is to be replaced by a community library.
Portslade Sports Centre, run by Freedom Leisure, is due to close the snooker room with its three full-size tables where players from two Brighton and Hove District League teams practise.
Players were notified by a poster in the snooker room stating: “In partnership with Brighton and Hove City Council, the snooker room is being converted into a much-needed and improved library facility for the local Mile Oak community to replace the one currently situated within PACA.”
Long-time snooker player Keith Fines plays with his friend Craig Spooner at the sports centre regularly.
Mr Fines said: “I was gutted. We’ve been playing there twice a week for 21 years. We work long hours during the day so we need a bit of respite and socialisation. We thoroughly enjoy it.
“There is room in that building to accommodate both. They don’t need to take the snooker tables out to put a library in.
“The expense of taking the snooker tables out (and) refurbishing the room to make it a library would be colossal.
“If they left the snooker tables where they were and put the library upstairs in the centre, the cost would be minimal.
“That snooker room has no natural light in it, there’s no windows and it has one emergency exit which isn’t good for a library.
“We use it for our wellbeing, for relaxation. A lot of pensioners use it to socialise too, and to take it away when it can be accommodated is gutting.
“You’re not going to get pensioners on to a bus to go to another club. They want a local facility.
“The council is taking away a local facility without any consultation, without any thought and it’s wrong.”
Mr Fines said that the space was still popular and a summer coaching programme for young snooker players was fully booked.
Coaches and players of all ages call the room home and pay as they play, without the membership fees charged at other snooker rooms in Brighton and Hove.
The existing purpose-built Mile Oak library, in Chalky Road, was opened as a shared space for the school and community by East Sussex County Council in 1975.
The school, Portslade School and Community College, has since become the Portslade Aldridge Community Academy (PACA) and the library is now the responsibility of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Portslade Sports Centre and the council were approached for comment.
I wonder where the new snooker room will be located. Hopefully in the Portslade area. Fingers crossed they keep three full-size tables at the new venue, wherever it is.
Phelim and his ship of fools don’t know what Snooker is. Far too common and anyway there are no green councillors in Portslade so we will punish you for not voting for us. Phelim ,Putin, sounds a bit similar.