A VITAL city youth club with hundreds of members hopes to end its long search for a new venue.

The King Alfred Youth Activity Centre (Kayac) is poised to bid for National Lottery funding for the biggest youth building in Hampshire.

The centre has agreed with King Alfred's College to work together for a joint development at the college's playing field off Milland Road, Bar End.

They propose a new £1.5m building that would have a hall large enough to hold four badminton courts.

It would have changing rooms for users of the sports pitches but its main use would be as a club for hundreds of youngsters.

Kayac has been homeless since January 2001 when its Middle Brook Street site was sold for housing in a £1m deal.

Efforts to find a new location have so far failed. The club has been hiring a hall at Henry Beaufort School in Harestock since leaving the city centre.

City council officers and councillors met representatives of the club on Wednesday to discuss the proposal.

Details of the news were rev-ealed at the full council meeting by council leader Rodney Sabine.

A business plan will be drawn up and an application for lottery funding is due to be made to Sport England in the summer. If successful, work could start in 2003 with a possible completion by the end of the year.

Mike Shearman, director of Hampshire Youth Options, said: "I am very optimistic. Kayac wants this to happen. King Alfred's wants it to happen.

"It will be a first-class facility. The children will be delighted to get somewhere they can call their own."

Mr Shearman said Steve Tilbury, the chief leisure officer at the city council, is a former Sport England officer and so would give important guidance in preparing the bid.

"Winchester is not perceived to be an area of any great need. However, there are pockets of considerable social disadvantage such as Highcliffe and Winnall," he said.

He said Kayac was behind the Highcliffe site with an alternative location in Winnall Valley Road, Winnall, ruled out as unfeasible.

Winchester MP Mark Oaten said: "There is no doubt there is a desperate need for a non-pub alternative for young people in the city."