Gateshead’s Liberal Democrats have attacked plans to shut down two leisure centres this summer.
Birtley Swimming Centre and Gateshead Leisure Centre are both expected to shut on July 21 because of council budget cuts, with a decision on their future due to be taken next Tuesday. While there are plans for both to be transferred to community ownership and hopefully reopened within a matter of months, the Lib Dems have accused civic centre bosses of “undermining” those hopes by closing the facilities down just before the school summer holidays.
Coun Ron Beadle, who leads Gateshead’s opposition party, said: “Firstly, customers may get into the habit of going elsewhere. Secondly, it is far more straightforward for a community asset and its staff to be transferred to an ongoing concern rather than being mothballed.
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“Thirdly, closing the centres significantly increases the chances of vandalism or worse. Fourthly, many customers will give up their Gateshead Leisure membership once the centres close, making the financial situation for all the centres worse.”
Coun Beadle argued that, with a report to a cabinet meeting next week showing a £3.4m underspend of Gateshead Council’s revenue budget in 2022/23, the Labour-run authority could afford to cover its leisure services’ annual £1.4m losses for another year in order to “improve the chances of their being run by the community”. The Lib Dems took seats off Labour in the Saltwell and Birtley wards, both where leisure centres were put under threat of closure, at May’s local elections.
Council leader Martin Gannon told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the Lib Dems had ignored the fact that the council had spent more than £20m of its reserves to balance its books in the past year. Coun Gannon added that the over-budget leisure centres are now “something we could not sustain”, with the council having lost £179m from its annual spending power under cuts imposed since 2010.
He said: “However they try to dress things up, the fact is that the current situation in leisure services is unsustainable. What we are trying to do is find a sustainable solution. We are working really hard and closely with community organisations to retain these facilities.”
Coun Gannon pledged that the two centres will be “absolutely secure” in the time that they are shut, with the council having pledged to put security measures in place to protect them until they are reopened. He added: “Genuinely, I would say [to the Lib Dems] please get on board with a concrete, solid, and realistic option to secure desperately-needed leisure facilities for the people of Gateshead.
“The test all of us have now is to make sure it happens and make it a reality.”
No jobs will be lost from the two centres’ closure, with all staff being transferred to work at the council’s other leisure sites – at Heworth, Blaydon, Dunston, Birtley Sports Hall, and Gateshead International Stadium.
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