YOUNG Hampshire basketball stars fear they may have to stop playing unless their school’s crumbling sports hall is rebuilt.

The Year Ten girls’ team from Bay House School in Gosport – winners of the Hampshire Cup and quarter finalists in the National Schools Basketball competition – have been struggling to find somewhere to train and play matches after their school sports hall was declared unfit for purpose in January, 2012.

Parents and young sports enthusiasts are angry that the Government’s Education Funding Agency (EFA) has turned down the school’s application for funding to rebuild the hall twice – and they have now started a campaign to win the grant.

This is the second Hampshire school to have its plans for a rebuild refused in recent months. Last month, Susan Trigger, head teacher of Bitterne Park School in Southampton spoke of her “devastation”

that a multi-million pound scheme to rebuild her crumbling school was not going ahead.

The girls at Bay House School – and other pupils and sporting groups – have been forced to use a temporary “tent-like” structure in the school grounds, which parents say is inadequate and is denying youngsters important sporting opportunities.

Gosport MP Caroline Dinenage is backing the school and parents in their fight and has written to the EFA urging it to give priority to Bay House School to resolve the funding issue.

Appeal The school is currently awaiting the outcome of a new appeal against the funding refusal and expects to hear this month.

Mrs Christine Allen, mother of basketball team member, Alex, 14, said: “The school and the area cannot afford to lose this facility. In what is billed as the decade of sport and just one year after the Olympics it is scandalous that this is happening”

Bay House School head teacher Mr Ian Potter said: “We are hopeful that there will be a change of mind as a result of our appeal.

The pupils of Bay House deserve better and in the spirit of an Olympic legacy we need this facility permanently in our community.”

A Department of Education spokesman said: “The last round of applications for the capital maintenance fund attracted more than 2,100 applications requesting £1.1bn – almost four times the amount available.

“We have provided the school with feedback on their application and an appeal is being considered. In the meantime, the EFA has provided Bay House School with £120,000 for a temporary sports hall.”