Kettering Conference Centre closure meeting attracts hundreds

About 300 people attended a meeting to discuss the proposed closure of a leisure complex.

Kettering Conference Centre, which includes the Lighthouse Theatre, Balance Health Club and Arena Sports Centre, announced it would shut at the beginning of July.

A public meeting was held on Thursday to discuss the centre's future.

North Northamptonshire Council is expected to meet with the landlords of the site later.

The Compass Group, which runs the site, said all businesses at the venue had been "making a loss for a number of years".

The first public meeting since the closure was announced was full, with queues left outside the Kettering Arts Centre, in St Andrew's Church.

A number of community groups spoke at the meeting including Starlight Dance Club, who had been using the theatre for 13 years.

Their representative said Kettering was "fast becoming the poor man's town of North Northamptonshire".

The leader of North Northamptonshire Council, Jason Smithers, said the local authority would be meeting with site landlords, Phoenix Leisure Management on Friday.

He said the strength of feeling from those speaking at the meeting about their experiences of the centre was "awe-inspiring".

"We will encourage the commercial operators that are already there to sort out what they need to do, but we stand ready as an authority to ask those difficult questions... to ensure that we get the best results for the residents of Kettering," Mr Smithers said.

The conference centre site is leased from the landowner by the council, in an arrangement inherited from the now-defunct Kettering Borough Council.

It has a contractual arrangement with a leisure company that has sublet the centre to the Compass Group.

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