ANY attempt to demolish Pinehurst People's Centre will be met by residents standing in front of bulldozers.

That was the stark message to emerge from a public meeting held to discuss a radical Swindon Council proposal for the centre.

It would involve knocking it down, using part of the land for housing and building another, smaller centre nearby.

But at a public meeting organised in the centre, about 100 people shouted their defiance.

And Coun Maureen Caton (Lab, Moredon) was told by organiser Shaun Doole: "Go back to your colleagues and tell them that the users and the people of Pinehurst will not put up with it.

"If the council is insistent on knocking the centre down, they are in for the biggest shock of their lives, because I'm not going to put up with it and the people of Pinehurst won't put up with it either."

Coun Caton was the only local councillor to attend last night's meeting, which was arranged before an emergency council meeting was called to discuss the authority's recent disastrous Ofsted report.

Mr Doole, a former chairman of the committee of locals which used to run the centre, thanked her for her attendance.

But he said later: "I'm personally prepared to stand in the way of the bulldozers if they come."

Coun Caton said she was convinced of the value of the centre, and urged people to make their voices heard in a public consultation exercise on the issue.

But people at the meeting pointed out that the consultation is only just beginning, and would be over by the end of February.

And users of the centre lined up to condemn the proposal.

Ian Wonnacott, 53, who for 10 years has run the New Dimensions group for people with long-term mental health problems, said: "My message to the council is, no, you can't be trusted, no, you couldn't be trusted from the start, and you can go away and play somewhere else.

"Over the past year, the council has cynically and in a sinister way driven groups out of the centre by charging groups which had previously had free space, while cynically paying lip service to community spirit."

Reg Willcocks, a Pinehurst resident all his life and a former teacher at the school which became the centre, said: "I don't see why the building can't stay as it is or be developed further."

It was agreed to hold another meeting early in the New Year, giving councillors another chance to hear their views.