Alliance Boxing Club: Much-loved Leeds community group desperate for new home as Cross Gates closure looms
A much-loved community boxing club in Leeds is desperately trying to find a new home as the imminent closure of its current premises is looming
Alliance Boxing Club has been based at Cross Gates Working Men’s Club for the last three years but plans are being put in place by the owners to demolish the building.
McCarthy Stone recently submitted a planning application to Leeds City Council to redevelop the Orchard Road site and build 51 retirement apartments in its place.
Planning documents said the club’s management committee was selling the site after it was forced to close due to mounting debts.
If permission were granted it would mean the boxing club, which provides classes for people of all ages, would need to relocate.
Co-owner Sam Smith explained that the group had been trying desperately to find a new home for 12 months but to no avail.
She said: “We put a big application to set up at the library and the council pushed us to get it in but then they said ‘we have changed our mind and are going to sell it’. We’ve really been through the mill.
“We’ve had the help of a couple of local councillors who have been great but there’s just been nothing. It’s like we keep hitting a brick wall.”
Planning permission was previously granted last year for demolition and nine new houses at the site after the building was sold. Ms Smith said that the new owner had been accommodating to the gym by letting them continue using it while the plans for the site were made.
Ms Smith said: “We are not going to have much longer I would have thought.
“It’s frustrating because we invested a lot into renovating the club when we took it over and turning it into a gym and then two years later we find out we were going to have to lose it. It’s a massive shame.”
She explained that the gym has become a vital outlet for many young people in the community and that their ability to keep prices low to allow more people to use it may be at risk if they were to move.
Ms Smith said: “There are so many people who need these facilities. The more that are closed the more anti-social behaviour there will be.
“Right now we charge £3 for kids but if we went somewhere else that had higher rents we would have to put that up to about £8. This has all been about supporting the community.
“It’s not just kids though. There’s also adults with mental issues who we help and people with all sorts of difficulties. The amount of people we get through is quite incredible really.”