A COMMUNITY society has offered member shares to locals to aid efforts to revive Hengistbury Head's outdoor centre. 

Community society, Hengistbury Head Outdoors (HHO), has said it is ready to begin its £4m plans to rejuvenate the centre but needs support from locals to pressure BCP Council into action. 

The society has offered locals to buy lifetime member shares for £10 to display to the council local support and allow them to be involved within the society. 

Director of HHO, Simon Pitman, said: "At its peak in 2019 there was 10,000 school children and 5,000 adults using the centre so there's a lot people who have gone through the centre and we found there's a lot of emotion and history around it too. 

"This love for the centre has helped us grow members initially. The member shares won't fund the centre but we're trying to make sure we are responsible and giving back the community in the widest possible sense."

Simon has said the society has reached more than 200 members and hopes the continued interest from locals will help the council to take them seriously. 

Hengistbury Head Outdoor Centre was closed in 2020 after Brockenhurst College was unable to continue activities.

Since then, the building has remained derelict and found too unsafe to allow people inside.

Simon said: "We want to work alongside the council to make this happen as possible because it's a win for them. We could have the keys tomorrow because we know what we need to do, our challenge is getting BCP to be on a similar timeline to us.

"I think anything but a community based organisation would struggle as you would suck thousands of pounds just paying ourselves let alone employing people. We're all volunteers, we're not getting any gain out of this." 

With larger plans to rebuild the centre, the HHO hopes the council can work with them to reopen the centre.

A BCP Spokesperson said:  “We are having ongoing discussions with the Hengistbury Head Outdoors group regarding ideas on how the site might be managed by the community in the future.”

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