Issue - meetings

To consider a report on a proposal document on the process by which the Leisure Facilities Service is structured, developed and transformed in the future to take into account the corporate priorities of the Council.

The Sub-Committee considered a ‘vision’ document for Cheshire East Leisure Facilities, which was based on the discussions held at the previous meeting of the Sub-Committee on 2^nd June 2010.

The current main leisure facilities inherited by Cheshire East could be categorised as follows:

• Type A – Principal Towns and Key Service Centres with community swimming pools
• Type B – Joint Use High Schools with dry sports facilities only
• Type C – Other stand alone dry sports facilities
• Type D – All other school, voluntary or private sports and leisure facilities with the potential for wider community use but not currently directly financially supported for community leisure activities by the Council.

The proposed strategic approach was that Type A facilities, which were highly valued by local communities and required the highest levels of professional leisure management expertise and experience, would not be recommended for transfer out of Council control at this stage although this would need to be reviewed on a site-by-site basis.

For Types B and C it was proposed that with the right safeguards, service level agreements and client monitoring it would be possible to negotiate the transfer of the operation of some or all of these facilities to other partners, including high school governors and Town or Parish Councils.  The financial savings from this could be used to pump prime and encourage via new service level agreements other high schools, primary schools and voluntary groups in Type D to consider extending community access to their facilities to help widen the availability of leisure facilities to people in their immediate localities.

Members discussed the proposals in detail and supported the approach outlined in the ‘vision’ document for the future delivery of the leisure service. The document would be submitted to the Corporate Scrutiny Committee before going on to Cabinet for formal approval and implementation.

RESOLVED

That

(1)   the briefing document ‘Cheshire East Council Leisure Facilities – A Potential Vision for the Future’ be recommended as the strategic approach for the future delivery of the leisure facilities service; and

(2)   the document be submitted to Cabinet for formal approval and implementation.