AN APPLICATION to renew a designation for an asset of community value (ACV) is to be made by a town council.

Amid long-standing concern over the future of Cornwall’s leisure centres operated by Cornwall Council under contract to GLL, trading as Better, Bodmin Town Council successfully applied to have the Bodmin Leisure Centre, formerly known as the Dragon Leisure Centre, listed five years ago.

However, with ACV listings lasting for only five years, the protection conferred on the community asset is set to expire if it is not renewed.

The protection allows the community the opportunity to bid for a property listed as an ACV if it is sold or leased for a period of 25 years or more.

If a building designated as an ACV is to be sold or leased as per the criteria, the owner is legally obligated to inform the local authority, who then notifies the community of the proposed sale and if the community bids for the asset, it triggers a six-month moratorium on a proposed sale.

While it is understood that there is no immediate risk to the future of Bodmin Leisure Centre, residents living adjacent to Halgavor Moor, a stretch of land which is the subject of an active planning application by Wainhomes for 540 dwellings, said they were concerned over the future of the leisure centre if the ACV was allowed to lapse. They were also concerned over what they perceive as an encroachment onto land currently used by the leisure centre in the submitted plans for the development.

At a meeting of the town council’s policy and resource committee, councillors discussed the impact of the ACV.

Cllr Craig Rowe said he had read a news story where there was a consultation on the future of leisure provision in Cornwall and said that the council ‘needed to get ahead and secure the interest on the asset, meaning that if the worst was to happen we would be in a good position to defend on behalf of the community’.

Cllr Jeremy Cooper, the chair of the committee, warned the residents present from the Save Halgavor Moor campaign group that the ACV renewal would not prevent the development from taking place.

He said: “The council’s position is clear as we did propose the ACV and pursue it on behalf the community but it is important that everyone understands this. The fact that the ACV is there to protect the asset for community use does not mean it can be used as a tool to stop development. While the council has made its position clear in the past with regards to the development, the ACV would not prevent the adjacent development.”

Councillors agreed unanimously to renew the application seeking to extend the ACV.