A DEPUTATION of Boscombe residents will tonight (Wednesday) tell borough education bosses: "Hands off our community space!"

Education chiefs will be at the town hall discussing the beleaguered Bournemouth Centre for Community Arts (BCCA), which now has a question mark hanging over its future.

As reported in the Daily Echo, councillors have voted to relocate adult education classes housed in part of the building from this summer because they claim the ageing centre is too expensive to repair.

Community theatre groups which are housed in the remaining part of the centre say they have been left in the lurch facing uncertain futures because they say there is nowhere else in the borough with the facilities they need where they could go.

Now local residents are joining the calls for the BCCA to be saved, describing it as the last and only community space in Boscombe.

"Hands off our community space," said Barry Rathbone, a member of the Boscombe Area Forum, who will speak this evening on behalf of the deputation. "How can they decide to move out adult education without consulting local residents?

"How can they make any decision about the future of the BCCA without public consultation?

"This is supposed to be a democracy but this current administration at the council is making decisions without thinking things through or getting the views of the people living in the area.

"The BCCA has been a community facility in Boscombe for more than 50 years.

"To make such a glib, off-the-cuff decision to close it because adult services says it's not viable anymore is completely ludicrous.

"Maybe they shouldn't have spent all the money they just have on the building, the toilets and making it wheelchair accessible."

The council, however, says that no final decision has yet been made about the BCCA.