REGENERATION projects totalling more than £1.2m in Southampton's Shirley area look likely to be approved.

Among the list of schemes is a £700,000 cash boost to the flagship Mansel Park pavilion scheme which will house the Golden Ring Amateur Boxing Club and offices for the Millbrook Towers and District Community Association.

Other schemes worth about £600,000 given the go ahead by civic leaders include a planned community garden project in Shirley and improvements to Southampton's children's side Brendon Football Club - in spite of fears by community activists that the schemes could fall by the wayside.

The list of projects have been given provisional approval by members of Southampton City Council's ruling Liberal Democrat cabinet.

Members heard that if the council had not agreed to spend the regeneration cash, the city would have lost out on regeneration funding worth over £1m.

City Council cabinet member for communities and regeneration, Councillor Liz Mizon, told members that if the council had not agreed to endorse the spending schemes, Shirley residents could lost out on £1.2m of regeneration money earmarked for use in Shirley from the South East of Eng-land Development Agency.

She added that SEEDA had set a deadline for spending the cash which expired in March next year and if it was not used, it would have to be returned to government coffers.

She said: "It is extremely difficult to get money spent that quickly. We now have to spend the money as quickly as possible."

Last month, the Daily Echo reported how all seven members of the Outer Shirley Regeneration Board quit after saying that money that should have been spent in their area was being diverted to projects elsewhere by the city council.

They feared that £87,000 earmarked for schemes in Shirley would be spent on developments at Weston Shore.