HUNDREDS of people have made their voices heard to save a popular community gym in Ebbw Vale after it was hit with a “surprise” eviction notice.

A petition aiming to reverse the notice to close Community Fitness Gym at Beaufort Hill Welfare Community Hall is close to reaching its 1,000 signature target within a fortnight.

The gym, which is run entirely by volunteers, has seen membership soar from an initial 26 to more than 1,000 inducted members since opening in April 2015.

Members are not bound to contracts and benefit from a ‘pay what you can’ model in a bid to foster a notion of “community and trust”.

Kurtis Haile, one of three volunteers in charge of the gym, said that the facility attracts between 50 and 100 users a day with a membership age ranging from 14 years old to 72.

But earlier this month, a notice from the Beaufort Hill Welfare Community Hall Group (BHWCHG) has called for the space to be cleared by December 4.

“I would have expected a verbal warning of some kind but this has come as a complete surprise,” said Mr Haile.

“Every demand the board have given us we’ve met every time, and after this we can’t get hold of them at all. All we want is a reason why we have to leave, but we haven’t even been given that.”

The BHWCHG board of trustees were handed control of the hall two years ago when Blaenau Gwent council agreed to a community asset transfer.

It followed an effort to save the building, which opened in 1935 as a miner’s hall, from closure and turn it into a community-owned building.

According to Mr Haile, all of the profits gained by gym membership are collected by the BHWCHG and pooled back into repairing or buying equipment.

He said: “The gym is a massive part of the community and the response on the petition show that. If it goes it it will leave a huge hole in a lot of people’s lives.”

An initial £40,000 worth of gym equipment was donated by Dr Paul Thomas, a local resident and the person the closure notice was addressed to.

“I am shocked and saddened by the threatened closure of this valuable service for local residents,” said Dr Thomas.

“The community owned building where the Community Fitness Gym is located should be a place that the majority of local residents can access, use and gain benefit from.

“This is exactly what the gym is all about, a place 100 per cent run by the community for the community”

David White, chair of the BHWCHG, has been approached but declined to comment.

To view the petition, click here.