Ongar's young people are set to benefit from a new purpose-designed youth club, it was revealed on Saturday.

Building work on the high-tech centre will go ahead once the long-awaited sale of the town's former comprehensive school at Fyfield Road is finalised.

It will feature a coffee bar, meeting rooms, IT facilities, a sports area and hall.

The plans were unveiled at a special meeting between Ongar Youth Club members and Mark Hughes, of the Essex Youth Service.

Mr Hughes revealed the lavish new youth club would be built once the school site was sold to Taywood Homes - as part of a deal to replace existing community amenities there.

The exciting news came during the meeting in the Love Lane council chambers, called after two youth club members took a stand against what they saw as creeping cutbacks threatening the survival of their weekly sports night at the existing Ongar Leisure Centre.

The arrangement has seen up to 80 youth club members enjoying cut-price use of the sports facilities under a payment agreement dating from the time of Ongar Comprehensive School.

After being told by the youth service that the forthcoming sale and redevelopment of the Ongar school site would spell the end of their Monday night swimming, football and trampolining sessions from April, club members Kim Steel, and Paula Home, both 18 from Shelley, swung into action.

Having started up a petition, the girls asked Ongar Parish Council chairman Keith Tait to help arrange the meeting with Essex Youth Service bosses where it was decided the youth club's leisure night would stay until September.

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