'It's all over' Work laws and capital shortfall kill off last hopes of saving Crook's leisure centre
A COMMUNITY group fighting to save Crook’s threatened leisure centre believes closure is inevitable.
After meeting with Stephen Howell, Head of Sport and Leisure at Durham County Council, Glenholme Community Leisure Centre Ltd is convinced its fate is now sealed. JULY 1 EDITION
The group’s bid to run Glenholme Leisure Centre as a community enterprise has failed to meet the authority’s minimum criteria.
And Chair John Winter believes it is unlikely the group or any other organisation will be able to fulfil them, given the deadline has passed and the only private sector company interested in taking on the six threatened centres has pulled out.
“I am gutted, absolutely gutted,” said Mr Winter.
“It will be a big loss for the town.
“We are going to have less now than we had in the 1950s.
“In fact, we are going to have absolutely nothing.”
Although maintaining the best outcome would be for the council to continue running the facility, Glenholme Leisure Centre Ltd were hopeful it could run it successfully if needed.
However, any group taking over Glenholme are legally required to maintain current staff and wages, as well as having significant money in reserve.
Mr Winter said the group, which is made up of local residents and concerned councillors, was not in a financial position to do so.
He said they had been aware of the employment law but had hoped to reduce the number of staff and replace them with community sports volunteers.
“We would also need at least £250,000 in capital reserves in case the boiler breaks down or the roof collapses in the first few weeks,” he said. “This was something we were not aware of and we just don’t have that kind of money.”
Durham County Council has been consulting on the future of six leisure centres, as part of its need to make £123.5m in savings over the next four years, including £1m on indoor leisure.
The authority received 19 bids from 10 organisations to take over the threatened facilities but has since written to many of the groups, which failed to meet legal criteria.
Terry Collins, Corporate Director of Neighbourhood Services, said:
“In particular we have legal responsibilities around the transfer of staff, health and safety and safeguarding. We have also stated from the start that bids should not be dependent on resources or cash injections or from the council.”
Final assessments of the bids and the responses to the authority’s concerns are now being made.
Cabinet will then consider final recommendations at a meeting later this month.
Cllr Eddie Murphy, who spearheaded a campaign to save Glenholme, said it was hard to envisage a positive outcome, adding: “We are all extremely disappointed.”