The best-used leisure centre in Gateshead could be lost if efforts to save it from closure are unsuccessful.
Gateshead Leisure Centre gets more than 285,000 visits every year, but the massive facility’s big running costs and repair bills mean it has been deemed among the “least sustainable” sites at risk of being shut down under council budget cuts. More than 200,000 people also go through the doors of Dunston Leisure Centre each year, the other centre that has been judged to be under the greatest threat.
Civic centre officials have warned that at least two of their sites will have to be closed, with the cash-strapped local authority saying its leisure services are “unaffordable” in their current form. A public consultation on the controversial plans is due to shut next Tuesday, December 20, before a final decision is made in January about which centres will face the axe or whether they can be salvaged.
