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A petition with more 1,000 signatures is calling on the council to reverse its decision to not include a bowls club in its leisure centre redevelopment plans.
Back in September 2025, the fate of Gedling Indoor Bowls Club was left in doubt following a decision by Gedling Borough Council’s cabinet to no longer include the club in its plans to replace Carlton Forum Leisure Centre and the Richard Herrod site with a new building.
The project would see a new leisure and community facility, called Carlton Active, built on the Richard Herrod Site, which could include an eight-lane swimming pool and teaching pool, a 100-station gym, community rooms and a café.
The indoor bowls club – which has ran since 1987 – is based at the Richard Herrod site and September’s cabinet decision saw the authority offering “non-financial support” to the bowls club to look at relocation options.
Up until that point, the club had been considered in the redevelopment proposals.
Members of the bowls club – which has ran since 1987 and has more than 230 members – protested outside the council house just before the decision was taken to save the club’s location.
The protesters’ efforts have continued since then, with a petition signed by 1,021 people calling on the council to “reinstate, retain and protect” indoor bowling within plans to be presented and discussed at the authority’s council meeting on Wednesday (November 12).
Speaking to the local democracy reporting service (LDRS) back in September following the cabinet’s decision, Ian Summerscales, director of the bowls club, said: “The most significant thing in this is that we know from the age range some of the players in the club that [the council is] effectively shortening people’s lives because of the impact of social isolation.
“We know that people don’t survive that for long.”
The long-standing club’s members are aged between 25 and 92 and it runs 2,200 indoor bowling sessions each month, including sessions offered for disabled bowlers.
It has offered mental respite for some players, with 65-year-old Len Knight previously telling the LDRS the club helped with his depression and anxiety, saying: “The people at the bowls club understood my problem. They would listen to me. I could talk to them. It was more of a community that brought me back.”
The authority’s reasoning for excluding a bowls facility in a new ‘Carlton Active’ centre was based on finances.
In September’s meeting, Lance Juby, assistant director of communities, leisure and wellbeing, said: “[The bowls option] would see an annual net deficit of £552,400 due to the estimated additional capital costs of providing this facility and borrowing repayments required for this.
“It’s estimated the cost of an additional bowls facility on-site would be between £5.6 million and £7.7 million.”
He said a six-lane bowls rink had a “significant impact” on the council’s borrowing potential and it was “unviable”.
It was confirmed at the meeting no facilities at the existing sites would be closed at that stage, but Mr Summerscales told the LDRS the council had “repeatedly refused” to extend the club’s lease past April 2026.
Carlton Forum and the Richard Herrod Centre currently face more than £2 million in backlog works and the two centres alone require a yearly subsidy of around £545,000, making them “unsustainable in their current form”, according to council papers.
The council’s response to the petition will follow discussion in Wednesday’s meeting.
