A £63m boost for swimming pools across England could offer a “lifeline” for at-risk leisure centres in Gateshead, it is hoped.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will outline plans in his Spring Budget today for a major new fund to help struggling facilities with spiralling energy bills and maintenance costs. The revelation has been met with cautious optimism in Gateshead, where there has been a public backlash in recent months over council budget cuts that could see two leisure centres shut down.
Gateshead Leisure Centre and Birtley Swimming Centre are the two sites currently earmarked for the chop, though the plans have been paused to allow for extra public consultation and possible community asset transfers to rescue the facilities. While local authority bosses admit it is too early to know what impact the new fund, to be managed by Sport England, might have in Gateshead, the commitment has been welcomed.
ChronicleLive has recently joined forces with community campaigners, sports clubs, MPs, and the council to call for the Government to step in with new funding to save the town’s leisure centres, while there have been nationwide warnings about widespread pool closures if help was not forthcoming.
Read More: 'Important for the community, important for the children' – Pleas to save Birtley Swimming Centre from axe=
This one-year £63m pot will be open for applications from councils for leisure centres with pools “that face immediate cost pressures including operational and maintenance costs, and energy bills”. There are more than 2,000 public leisure centres in England, 800-plus of which have pools.
A Gateshead Council spokesperson said: “The £63m for leisure centres with pools, which was announced today ahead of Wednesday's Spring Budget, may be a welcome lifeline. However, until the full detail of the funding is announced we can not assess if this will save our leisure centres from potential closure.”
Layla Barclay, a member of the Save Leisure Gateshead campaign group, urged the council to "seize this opportunity with both hands". She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "The fact that the Government has relented on this and put up this funding shows just how important it is and how impactful it would be if the centres were to close down."
Gateshead MP Ian Mearns said the cash “offers some hope” – even if only to give the council more “breathing space” before condemning any centres to closure. Fellow Labour MP Liz Twist, who represents the Blaydon constituency, added: “Further investment into helping our leisure centres is welcome, but I will be looking hard at the details of this funding to ensure that it meets the needs of our communities best. We urgently need support for our leisure services to survive this cost of living crisis, something that I have repeatedly called for over this past year.”
The financial struggles of Gateshead’s leisure centres go beyond increased energy bills and inflation pressures, however. The council has argued that its attempts since 2015 to make its leisure centres self-sustaining have failed and that they are expected to overspend their budget by around £2m this year, while also requiring £14.5m of maintenance over the next two decades.
Saltwell councillor Robert Waugh, who is part of a group hoping to take over Gateshead Leisure Centre, added: “Of course we welcome the news and if it can help us in any way we will explore those opportunities with the council.”
Sport England chief executive Tim Hollingsworth called the £63m pledge a “significant and welcome amount of support that will offer a lifeline to many public leisure centres across England as well as help sustain them into the future”.
£40m will be put towards long-term decarbonisation and energy efficiency schemes at leisure centres, with the remaining £23m earmarked to help with costs. Council-run pools, pools run on behalf of councils by private companies and by charities will all be eligible for support.
Mr Hunt said: “Soaring bills are hitting us all hard, and community pools have been thrown in the deep end. I know they are loved by millions of people. This vital lifeline will keep them afloat.”
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