GET your skates on!
That is the message as the Daily Echo today launches a new bid to bring ice skating back to Southampton - 20 years after the city's Top Rank rink closed down.
In 1988 skaters were promised a new venue for skating and since then campaigners have seen ideas and projects come and go, with hopes repeatedly dashed in favour of other major developments.
Now the Daily Echo is again supporting calls from thousands of ice hockey players, figure-skaters and ordinary fun-seekers who want the return of the rink in the city.
Under the banner of United Southampton Skaters, groups that previously called the rink in Banister Park home will march through the city on August 22 and present a petition to the council.
It will be exactly 20 years to the day since the city's ice skating venue was closed, to be replaced by housing, and a previous Daily Echo-backed petition of nearly 35,000 signatures was collected against the closure.
See today's Daily Echo for the chance to win a glide on the ice rink onboard the world's largest cruise ship
Campaigners have already been out on the street, speaking to the public and gathering new signatures to show city leaders just how important an ice rink would be for Southampton.
So far organisers say the fight to bring back skating to Southampton is more popular than ever, and they are hoping to beat the number of people that signed the previous petition two decades ago.
Members of Southampton Ice Dance and Figure Skating Club and Southampton Vikings Hockey Club have taken to the streets of the city to rally support for the campaign and have been overwhelmed with the response.
"We have thousands of people interested, and everyone who stops to talk to us says it is the one thing that Southampton desperately needs," said skating club secretary Edna Boden.
Log on to dailyecho.co.uk tomorrow to download a copy of the petition
"We have been fighting for 20 years, and the demand for a new rink is stronger than ever so we won't give up and the march on August 22 will show this."
C o u n c i l l o r John Hannides, Cabinet member for leisure, culture and heritage, said he supported the aspirations of the campaign but a new ice rink would depend on finding a company to build and run the rink as a commercial ly viable business.
He said that in his 14 years on the city council he had supported the notion of an ice rink but was not backed by councillors from other parties.
"It is hard for me to comment on why previous administrations have failed to bring a rink to Southampton," he said.
"But I should make it clear it is something we see as a priority.
"We are pulling out all the stops.
There is more action being taken now than there has been in the past ten years," he added.
The Daily Echo will join campaigners in handing the petition to council leaders at the steps of the Civic Centre on August 22 following the march through the city centre, which starts at Banister Park at 1pm.
