A POPULAR boxing club on Oxford’s biggest estate is no closer to finding a permanent new home.

Blackbird Leys Amateur Boxing Club, which currently has about 60 members, has been looking for a new place to train for more than three years.

The club has run since the early 1960s and has been based at Blackbird Leys Community Centre for at least 30 years, but needs somewhere to accommodate an ever-growing list of participants.

At present, coaches have to dismantle all the equipment after every session and youngsters do not have the shower and changing facilities they need.

Head coach Tony Gibson, 64, said: “We train on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. At the moment we have about 41 juniors aged 10 to 17 and 20 seniors aged 17 and above. We are very popular. It’s mainly the seniors that want the space. The juniors are not too worried as long as they have got somewhere close to go. If I have to put the ring up for the juniors on a Friday night and there are 25 or 26 of them, we just haven’t got the room. And we have only got one shower that barely works.”

He added that organisers of the club had been in talks with the Oxford Academy about renting out a space on the school site in Sandy Lane West, Littlemore.

At this stage nothing is set in stone and the new season, starting on September 8, will see members return to train at the community centre.

Mr Gibson said: “We don’t have a waiting list but if we get a big influx of people, we have to turn them away because of lack of space. If we had more, more people could join.”

Over the years the club has explored several possible sites to move to, including the iKidz Activity Club at the nearby Ozone Leisure Park, but has found none that were suitable.

Before the new Leys Pools & Leisure Centre was constructed, coaches had wanted to use the drained pool at the old Blackbird Leys Leisure Centre as a space for bouts.

But after months of waiting, they were turned down by Oxford City Council.

Mr Gibson added: “They said it was going to be refurbished. Football clubs got their own changing rooms when they built the leisure centre, but they never built anything for us. It would have been ideal and it would have been the right time.

“Boxing lets the kids let off steam and teaches them a bit of discipline. The numbers are going up and up.”

Oxford City Council did not respond to a request for comment.