Rumours are rife that leisure facilities at Jarman Park, including nightclubs Lava and Ignite and the town's only cinema, will shut down.

A web page dedicated to the claims has been set up on the popular social networking website Facebook.

The internet page named Leisure World = R.I.P includes reports that Scandinavian home shop Ikea has plans to move in.

One anonymous contributor wrote: "I have it on fairly good authority that LeisureWorld as an entity will actually cease to be in March!" The page currently has 182 members.

The Gazette has also received emails from residents who have heard the rumours. Jan Tompkins said: "I have recently heard that the whole of this site is to close on March 15.

"I find this very sad if this is true as it is well used by all ages in the area and it must have just had a bumper week during the half term, as it is the only place in Hemel that youngsters can go."

However, Polly Farrell from Capital and Regional, the London firm that leases the site from Dacorum Borough Council, said: "All I can say is LeisureWorld is not about to close. The tenant's lease isn't about to expire so Luminar (which runs Lava and Ignite] will continue to trade and the cinema remains there too."

She said there are 'medium to long term' plans to regenerate the site and said the revamp would include a 'mixture of uses'.

Miss Farrell added that she is not aware of any plans for Ikea to move in.

Last October, Hemel Hempstead MP Mike Penning claimed the whole site would need to be rebuilt within the next five years.

He said the 'prefabricated' building was coming towards the end of its life span and called for a debate on whether the facilities could be relocated away from residential properties, following claims of drunken revellers being antisocial.

Dacorum Borough Council owns the land on Jarman Park but leases it to Capital and Regional who has several tenants running facilities there.

Miss Farrell told The Gazette that the site has a 150 year lease from the council and denied claims the site is a temporary building.

At the start of this year a bar on the complex called JJ's, previously known as Jumpin Jaks, was shut down by leisure firm Luminar, which further fuelled speculation that the entire site will soon shut. A spokesman for Luminar told The Gazette that there were no imminent plans for the former bar and added that a business review will be carried out before any decisions are made.

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