Land with a former gym which has laid vacant since guns and drugs were seized by police is set to be sold.

The 0.73-hectare site previously trading as ‘Don Styler’s Physical Training Centre’ is in isolated woodland on Monks Walk, near Heritage Way in Elson, Gosport.

The site and accompanying land, which has housed a gym, youth hostel and smallpox hospital, will be sold to the Ministry of Defence and the land cleared to prevent anti-social behaviour.

The lease was held by the same family from 1962 until early 2024. The contract ended and lease forfeited in February after guns and drugs had been found at the gym the previous year, an officer’s report for a Gosport Borough Council policy and organisation board meeting.

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In September 2023, Hampshire Constabulary said it had seized items including a single barrel shotgun, pistols, a rifle, ammunition, firearm component parts, replica firearms, knives, £2,000 cash, suspected cocaine and suspected steroids from the gym.

The site, next to MoD land, has seen anti-social behaviour since becoming vacant and security will now be managed by the MoD which should reduce the opportunities for criminal behaviour, said the report. 

The Secretary of State for Defence and MoD have agreed to pay £130,000 for the site and up to £45,000 to clear the site. Hughes and Salvidge, a specialist demolition company, has quoted £37,000 and the clearance will be managed by the council and capped at £45,000 for the MoD.

The site has cost the council approximately £52,500 since February 2024 plus business rates of about £6,000. Assuming the sale is completed in March the council should make £50,000, said the officer’s report.

Land next to the site will continue to be used by dog walkers and other members of the public, the meeting heard.

The officer’s reports said that even if the buildings, which also used to be a smallpox hospital and later a youth hostel, are repaired it would command a rental of no more than £9,000 per annum being the amount payable under the previous lease. The empty site costs approximately £6,000 per month for security, loss of business rates and loss of income. 

Contracts are hoped to be exchanged before Christmas with completion before the end of March.