2,000 sign up to save hall from being axed

The Gorgie War Memorial Hall is one of six community centres that the city council wants to close to save 120,000.

As well as the petition, a page on social networking site Facebook entitled Save The Gorgie War Memorial Hall currently has almost 400 friends.

A public meeting was held at the hall – known as the "Gorgie Mem" – this week to fight the closure, attended by local MSP Sarah Boyack and Labour councillors Donald Wilson, Andrew Burns and Ricky Henderson.

The council is looking to make a saving of 34,000 from the closure of the centre, with the majority of the hall's spending – 27,000 – currently going on salaries. The hall's committee has argued that this will not represent a saving to the council as they expect all jobs to be redistributed.

Gorgie Mem committee member Aiden Murphy said: "They're proposing to move all the services to Tynecastle High, but they have yet to tell us how much they're going to have to pay the school to hold the services there as it's a PPP2 school so there will be private costs involved.

"There's also costs associated with closing the building and keeping it secure, wind and watertight so, when you add it all up, it's going to be no saving at all."

The hall is situated on Gorgie Road and is an old church, which was opened in 1887 and affectionately known as the "little church in the field".

After the First World War, a memorial was erected in the hall to commemorate the names of local fallen heroes and it remains an important focal point.

The fate of this memorial if the hall closes is also undecided.

A city council spokeswoman said it was currently in negotiations with Tynecastle High regarding the cost of moves and the costs of providing services there.

She added: "The proposals are currently out for public consultation and nothing will be finalised until May.

"Despite budget pressures, we have been working hard to maintain a modern CLD service – we are committed to providing a high quality service throughout the city.

"New community hubs will reduce costs but the quality of service will not affected. Users of the buildings set to close will still be able to access quality services nearby."