PLANS for a new Salvation Army church and meeting hall have had a setback after revelations of a £9.6million black hole in the national organisation's finances.

The funding crisis means the Basingstoke branch is having to rethink its plans to build the new premises, and hopes to move out of their Wessex Close premises have been put on hold.

Major Ron Smith said that the local corps has been raising cash for the project for some time, and members were hopeful that the shortfall could be made up from the national kitty.

But the congregation has been left disappointed after news of the financial crisis and must now reassess the situation.

Major Smith said: "We have been raising funds towards this and had hoped headquarters would be able to help, but obviously that's out of the question now.

"It will still go ahead, but we are going to have to wait.

"We have outgrown our present building. Our Sunday morning congregation is at capacity and we want to expand our community programme."

Major Smith added that the corps would meet to discuss what the next move would be and said the annual fundraising efforts would not be affected by the national state of affairs.

The organisation hopes to raise £3m nationwide for its social work projects and volunteers will be collecting door-to-door throughout the Basingstoke area until Sunday.

He said: "People are very generous to the Salvation Army and support the work we do. Any further donations to help us meet our target will be extremely well received though."

The £9.6m shortfall will be overcome by making savings in administration costs at a national level, and no charity or community work will be affected.

A spokesman for the group said: "The Salvation Army in the UK and Republic of Ireland is making cuts to offset a shortfall in expected income.

"Frontline services will cont-inue to operate as normal and income raised from the annual door-knock appeal will be used exclusively for social work."

The Salvation Army has been in the town for 124 years and based at Wessex Close for the last 28. Although they are now a welcome fixture in the town, their members were not always so welcome.

The town had a bad reputation for drunkenness and so a Salvation Army contingent was sent to preach against the dangers of strong drink.

Many locals did not take kindly to this and there were a number of riots between 1880 and 1882 to protest against the Salvation Army's presence in the town.

Rioters even targeted The Gazette's offices in Church Street because the paper backed the Salvation Army's stance.