THE future of community sport in Llanwern is saved from the bulldozers, club sports leaders said.

As we revealed yesterday developers planning to bring 1,700 homes and 7,000 jobs to eastern Newport have said threatened Llanwern Sports and Social Club can stay.

A question mark has hung over the club since June 2001 when Corus said they would close it and consider developing the land.

The Argus has campaigned for the club to be saved and yesterday, St Modwen Properties revealed it had bought 600 acres of former steelworks from Corus, which would form part of a massive £200m redevelopment. The company will employ contractors to build different aspects of the massive scheme.

But executive director Richard Froggatt revealed the club and its 2,000 members would be part of the new community.

Stuart Hargreaves, 45, chairman of the club and its football section, said: "We've been fighting for years to secure the club so this is very good news. The kids will still have somewhere to play a game.

"If the club had closed four adult football teams and two rugby squads would have had to pack in. "We will have a big party at the club as soon as our future is confirmed in writing.

"So many sports use our facilities. We've got a major darts tournament soon, Newport Rugby practise here and we've got a women's pool championship."

Tony Hughes, 70, assistant president of Llanwern Works Bowls, said: "We've lost at least five bowling greens in Newport in the last 20 years. To have lost another one here would have been disastrous.

"We've been on a knife edge these past few years and there have been too many promises.

"Now we hope for a new bowling green and a new clubhouse." A spokesman for the developers said the whole project - to affect both the Corus site and surrounding areas - could be worth £750m, making this the biggest Welsh redevelopment since Cardiff Bay.

Newport mayor Councillor Ray Truman, who was a regular at the club and played rugby for one of the teams, said: "It's a well-attended club with a lot of great sporting facilities. People from Alway, Ringland, Liswerry and Llanwern all use them.

"With the job losses at Corus the last thing that was needed was a community facility taken away from the area."