A COMMUNITY and humanitarian service organisation that closed earlier this year after a 54-year presence in the town could make a comeback.

Andover & District Lions Club announced its closure in March after an unsuccessful bid to recruit new members left the dwindling group of just seven unable to carry on its charitable work.

Over the years the group, which was part of a larger national and international organisation, raised well over £250,000 for various good causes such as Andover Crisis and Support Centre, Icknield School and SERV Wessex.

Now the chairman of the Basingstoke branch of the Lions, Tony Bamberger, has declared if there was enough interest expressed, other groups would help get an Andover division back up and running.

He said: “We thought rather than just saying we need to start a new Lions Club, we’d maybe set up a couple of local service type projects.

“We want to find out if anyone in Andover is interested in taking part in a service type project, maybe a litter pick.

“Maybe there’s a group of people who just want to do things like that and aren’t interested in the Lions, but at least something is happening in Andover, which may have been lost because of the club closing down.”

These service events will help to test whether there is an interest in bringing back the branch.

Alongside fundraising for causes, both locally and internationally, the groups are sociable, with frequent meetings and events taking place.

Tony is asking residents of Andover who would be interested in taking part in service-driven projects within the town to declare their interest by emailing tony.bamberger@hotmail.co.uk or sending a message through the Basingstoke Lions Facebook page.

He added: “We’ve got an ageing population of lions so we do need to keep finding new people and there’s just a hole in Andover now which would be nice to fill”