Petition launched as Bath Place gives thanks

Buy photos » Launching a petition against the closure of Bath Place Community Venture are Laura Morris, Rebecca Hayes, and Stacey Calder. 09.012.008.leam.jg (www.buyphotos247.com)

BOSSES at Bath Place Community Venture have been buoyed by support this week in a bid to save the organisation from eviction.

Last week we revealed how the venture had been served a 28-day notice to leave the old library building in Avenue Road – where it has been based for two years following a fire at its original Bath Place home in late 2009 – as owners Warwickshire College want to sell it off for possible redevelopment.

On Thursday (February 23) Laura Morris and Stacey Calder from Networking Mummies UK, who were holding a recruitment fayre on the site, decided to launch a petition to spare Bath Place from closure.

Stacey said: “We were shocked and disgusted to hear the plans and decided to start our petition.

“Bath Place is part of our community. We and many others within Networking Mummies have used this community centre at the old library for many events and it brings together lots of other community based projects and groups.”

Bath Place site supervisor, Clayton Denwood, told the paper all the board and staff wanted to express their gratitude for the “support, concern and many offers of assistance” received in the past week.

He added: “We would particularly like to thank, of course, the Networking Mums for their initiative and also to the students of Warwick University who held their end of Go Green Week celebration at the old library and generously donated all of the proceeds.

“We have heard many voices sing praise towards what we have achieved and many individuals have also come forward to offer advice, help and to share their memories of Bath Place over the years.

“It has been a difficult time but we will be meeting at the earliest possible opportunity to work out a solution both in the short and long term and will be sure to communicate any further developments."

Warwickshire College, owners of the grade-two listed building, insist allowing Bath Place to use the venue rent-free was always understood to be a temporary 'stop-gap' measure.

The petition can be found at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savebathplace/.