CAMPAIGNERS fighting to save Ryedale Indoor Bowls Club are appealing for suggestions and ideas to develop the facility.

The sale of the club in Norton has been put on hold after moves to have it registered as a Community Asset.

Terry Wray, chairman of the working group set up to save the centre, said if this was successful a moratorium would be put on the sale to allow them to put together a bid to buy the property.

He said: “As a result we are trying to get as many local organisations in the local area, including Norton, Malton and across Ryedale, to join in a development plan for the new building.

“We are going to reduce the amount of area the bowls club uses from eight lanes to four to allow us to develop the sports area for a multifunctional use such as fitness classes, talks, meetings and so on.”

Mr Wray said as part of their development plan they would like groups to put forward their requirements so they could provided a community centre that would meet as many needs as possible.

“The building will be largely run by volunteers with a number of staff if we can find the funding – but we also need to raise the money to buy the building,” he said.

Mr Wray said they expected to hear by the end of June as to whether the centre had been registered as a Community Asset.

“We will then have six months to put together our business plan and put forward our bid for the building,” he said.

“We now have the opportunity to come up with a ‘tailor-made’ centre if groups and organisations come forward with views of what they would like to see to suit their needs.

“We realise this is not going to be easier and there is a lot of work to be done but we have got to make the effort and do all we can to save the centre.”