A Bristol boxing club has been 'left out of pocket' after council plans to refurbish gym were cancelled

Downend Boxing, one of Bristol’s most successful amateur boxing clubs, is facing an uncertain futures after it claims Bristol city Council reneged on a deal to refurbish their gym and abandoned plans for alternative education provision on the site.

Since 2021, the club has been the sole leaseholder at the Harry Crook Centre in Moorlands Road, Fishponds, and it previously shared a lease with a pre-school when Downend Boxing moved to the site in 2016.

In April 2022, the club was approached by Council officer Jessica Taylor with the idea of using the site for alternative educational provision in partnership with North Star Academy, and, following discussions between them, the Council and North Star, the boxing club was given a date to vacate the premises to allow refurbishment works to take place in Spring 2024.

Following the date, the club would move temporarily into the nearby Chester Park Junior School.

Despite two changes in the timescale, surveyors moved in to assess the options and the club was assured the project would definitely be going ahead. Local residents were in formed in June of 2025 of the plans, and surveys continued including drilling, excavation and a bat survey.

However, after both North Star and Downend Boxing failed to get reassurance from the Council about the future of the project, during an online meeting on October 1 called by City council Education Capital Programmes Director Sandra Roebuck, North Star Academy, Chester Park School and Downend Boxing were informed “quite bluntly” that the project was not going ahead due to “safeguard concerns around the site”.

Craig Turner, the club’s founder, explained the unexpected U turn by the Council has left the club out of pocket and without sufficient funds to repair damage to the building caused by surveying works.

He said: ““The decision was met with astonishment by all those involved as this decision could have been made just by looking at a map and without spending thousands of pounds of council tax payers money on surveys and planning approval.

“The Council officer also claimed that costs would have been higher than previously estimated and that the project had never been assured as going ahead.

“When we asked the Council when the decision was made we were told it was ‘recently’, but I have discovered that they instructed the Fire Safety Officer to stop servicing the fire extinguishers at least a month before we were informed that the project had been cancelled.”