AN under-threat learning centre would be the perfect venue to hold classes for traveller children, according to a campaigner for gipsy rights.

Essex County Council has pulled the plug on the hi-tech Imagine Centre at Colchester’s Weston Homes Community Stadium, claiming it is too costly to run.

Chris Atkins, who works with gipsy families and lobbies on their behalf, has called for the facility to be saved as a resource for the traveller community.

She said it would be a “huge waste of money” to shut the centre, which only opened in April.

She claimed the interactive classroom would be ideal for children of gipsies at the official travellers’ site, which is proposed for land off Severalls Lane.

Mrs Atkins said: “As travellers move around a lot, the children are often behind the other pupils when they do get to enroll in school.

“I have been on a tour of the Imagine Centre, and it was amazing. As the stadium is so close to the travellers’ site which the county council wants to build, I think it would be brilliant if extra classes for the children could be held there.”

Essex County Council said last month it was closing the Imagine Centre as it costs an “unsustainable” £100,000 a year to run.

It proposes to distribute state-of-the-art gear – including an interactive floor, video wall and touch screens – among other education facilities and schools.

Colchester United Community Sports Trust, which plays a role in running the centre, has been granted a stay of execution until the end of the month to find a way of keeping it open.

The county council has had to resubmit its plans for a 12-pitch traveller site in a field east of Severalls Lane, as it failed to start building before a three-year planning permission limit ran out.

Residents who oppose the move are trying to derail the scheme, arguing it is no longer necessary as the Government has scrapped regional gipsy targets.

However, county hall bosses have pledged to persevere in a bid to counter the problem of travellers pitching up illegally in Colchester. Essex County Council was unavailable for comment.