A FEASIBILITY study could be undertaken to determine how residents of Callington would feel about a new community centre being built.

Callington Town Forum CIC, which only recently became a community interest company, held its inaugural meeting this week to discuss what projects it should focus its efforts on.

Members highlighted that there had been discussion around the town about the need for a community centre for a number of years.

An informal meeting with some of the members, along with Cornwall Councillor for Callington Andrew Long, had previously taken place where Cllr Long told members that the youth centre building owned by Cornwall Council was being sold off but there was a covenant attached to it meaning that the money would be ring-fenced for Callington for a youth/community facility.

He said Cornwall Council had agreed in principle to the use of the top part of the Co-op car park for a community building. The scout hut which is next to the suggested building area is owned by the scouts and if they chose to sell it to join in the new development, the money would go into central funds.

At the inaugural meeting on Monday, secretary Peter Sulstan said: ‘The youth centre is set to be sold, the value of which is unknown.’

‘The money will have to be given to youth services, which we could use if we were to build a community centre with youth facilities. We talked about who might use it — there’s around 90 groups and organisations in the town who need rooms.

‘There is demand for it in the town. We thought we should speak to other organisations and undertake a feasibility study.

‘There’s a lot of information to be gathered and thought about before we go forward.’

One member asked if there had ever been any type of survey as to what residents thought of a community centre.

Chairman Mike Moore said the Town Forum had been involved with the collection of data from the Neighbourhood Plan questionnaire and comments about a community centre for Callington had been mentioned.

He said: ‘A significant number of people in the questionnaires did mention that it was something they wanted.’

Members agreed that a feasibility study would be a sensible thing to do before anything else to determine if a community centre was what the people of Callington wanted.

It was highlighted that Lottery funding could be obtained to pay for the feasibility study and agreed that the chair, secretary and member town councillor Rick Lumley would speak to the Real Ideas Organisation in Liskeard for advice and information as to how to go forward.