Plans to consult on centre closures axed
It will focus instead on other ways to cut leisure costs
CHESHIRE East has scrapped plans to consult on closing four of its smaller leisure centres and will instead launch a public consultation seeking other costcutting measures within the service.
The decision taken at a meeting of the environment and communities committee doesn’t guarantee the future of any of the council’s centres because the savings still have to be made.
But, following a public backlash over plans to consult on the possible closure of leisure centres at Knutsford, Middlewich,
Poynton and Holmes Chapel next year, the proposal was amended.
The consultation will now look at a variety of options - yet to be determined - to deliver the necessary savings.
Macclesfield councillor Ashley Farrall who proposed the amendment, was one of several councillors critical of the report presented by the council’s officers.
He said he believed the wording of the original recommendation, which focused on closing four of the 15 centres, ‘pre-determines the outcome’.
During the five hour discussion, numerous public speakers and councillors questioned the ‘flawed’ data provided by officers to show why those four centres had been earmarked for closure.
Objectors said it didn’t include clubs or school use.
Coun Andrew Kolker, speaking as the chair of Everybody Health and Leisure (EHL), which runs the council’s leisure centres, said: “All the leisure centres proposed for closure are joint use centres. Their closure will therefore not only affect the residents but will affect the schools’ ability to deliver their curriculum.
“These schools don’t have sports halls because they were built around a leisure centre so without the leisure centre they can’t deliver the PE lessons and the sports curriculum they have to.”
He said thousands of children use the leisure centres every week and the schools pay for the use.
In a written statement, Poynton resident Julie Felton, said: “If the leisure centre were to close, all clubs and associated opportunities would stop as there is simply no capacity for them to relocate elsewhere.”
Cheshire East is facing an £18.7m shortfall this year and has to make savings. The leisure review claimed to be also looking at how to ‘address health inequalities and maximise health outcomes for the residents of Cheshire East’.
Councillors Stewart Gardiner and Hayley Whittaker, from Poynton, criticised the methodology behind the data the officers used to recommend the four centres for closure.
The proposals, as originally presented, have now been scrapped and a new consultation on how to find the savings will be drafted. This will then have to be approved by the committee at a future date.