The Council of Ministers has unveiled a ten-year plan to turn the facility into a multi-purpose venue for conferences and concerts alongside a hotel, cinema, ten-pin-bowling alley and a casino. The move would see sports organisations currently based at the Fort forced to find alternative homes.
Within the next year, it is anticipated that the sports clubs will have moved out and internal structural work to strip out asbestos will start, landscaping for gardens and heritage walkways will begin and plans for improved access from Snow Hill will have been submitted.
However, Roy Travert, who was previously a member of the Support the Fort Liaison Group – which was set up following previous attempts to relocate sport from the facility – has lodged a petition online calling for sport to remain a part of the centre’s future.
He said: ‘This petition is a last attempt to stop all sporting facilities being removed from Fort Regent. The present facilities are well used by the public and should be redeveloped
‘The government has spent a considerable amount of money on studies to develop Fort Regent into a modern sports village that could accommodate the majority of sports currently undertaken in the Island. This would be contained inside the fabric of the present building providing much-needed wet weather facilities.’
He cited a 1999 proposition approved by the then-States Assembly to turn the Fort into a modern community health and sports centre. This proposition, he said, had never been rescinded and should therefore still stand.
