Gateshead has united in a call for its “absolutely vital” leisure centres to be saved from closure.
The Government is being urged to step in with critical funding that would allow cash-strapped local council chiefs to abandon their plans to shut beloved community facilities. Outraged local campaigners, sports clubs at risk of folding, the town’s MPs, Gateshead Council leaders, and more have all pleaded with ministers to offer up the cash needed to prop up the crucial services, at a time when pools and leisure centres across the country are facing an uncertain future.
ChronicleLive is now also backing the campaign to protect the leisure centres, with at least two set to close under drastic budget-cutting plans revealed by the council in October – with the Gateshead Leisure Centre, Dunston Leisure Centre, and the sports hall at Birtley Leisure Centre having been deemed to be under the greatest threat. Civic centre officials say Gateshead’s council-run leisure services have become “unaffordable”, at a time when the authority has had to slash £179m from its budget since 2010 and predicts a £55m financial black hole over the next five years.
