Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Major blow as leisure centre forced to shut
MORE than 150 people are losing their jobs with the closure of Gloucester’s GL1 Leisure Centre and Oxstalls Sports Park today - and they may not reopen for a year.
The news is a major blow to sports clubs, schools and thousands of sports people across the city and beyond. Aspire Sports and Cultural Trust, which has been running Gloucester City Council’s leisure services for 15 years, has decided to wind down as a charity this week.
This means the Bruton Way gym and a swimming pool will be out of action for the foreseeable future along with the tennis courts, outdoor sports pitches and all other Aspire-run facilities at Oxstalls.
The decision has come as a shock to council chiefs who had an agreement in principle for the charity to continue running the services until September 2024.
In 2021, the authority started to review its options in terms of procuring a new leisure service and was advised in early 2022 to conduct a procurement exercise.
It was told it would need more time to carry out the procurement and was advised to agree to a oneyear extension to the management contract it has with Aspire to take it up to September 2024.
But Aspire has now confirmed that it is going into liquidation.
Council leaders say they have been discussing the possible oneyear extension with Aspire since March last year and were optimistic that it would be agreed as they had an agreement in principle.
This extension would have allowed the council enough time to go through a procurement process, appoint a provider and if it was a different provider to them to allow the new provider to take over and gear up to run the services from September next year.
Council chiefs were optimistic and believed an agreement on the oneyear extension to the contract would be achieved.
However, earlier this week Aspire’s board held a meeting to consider that and concluded that they could not continue as a going concern and have taken the decision to go into liquidation.
It is understood that the trust does not believe it will be able to continue to operate even with a significant amount of additional council support which was part of their negotiation process with the council.
Aspire has been severely challenged by a number of financial pressures including the coronavirus pandemic and more recently the stark rise in utility costs and general inflation.
As part of the 12-month extension agreement, the council had proposed a programme of improvements to the facilities. The council provided more than £1.53m extra to support the trust since 2019 and was proposing to give it another £260,000 until the end of the financial year.
A council spokesperson said: “We
recognise it has been extremely difficult for leisure centres across the country and we understand the pressures that the trust has faced.
“We have worked with Aspire to try to support them with their financial challenges and reduce costs as well as committing to ongoing financial support. We are disappointed that Aspire did not feel it was able to continue beyond September and understand that this was a difficult decision.
“We are aware of the impact that this will have on staff and the people who use these facilities, and we’re doing everything we can to find
another provider to secure the service’s long-term future.”
An Aspire spokesperson said: “As many people will be aware, as a charity we have faced some challenging conditions over the last few years and have done everything we can to meet those challenges.
“Having reached the end of our 15-year contract we hoped to continue for another year to ease the council’s search for another operator.
“However, as a registered charity, trustees have a legal duty to only trade if council funding is assured and risk is controlled. Trustees felt
unable to trade legally as a ‘going concern’.
“We have now taken the incredibly difficult decision to wind up the charity and to go into liquidation as we believe we are no longer able to operate legally in the way that we would wish.
“We’d like to thank our staff who have consistently gone above and beyond, as well as our loyal customers who have supported us throughout the last 15 years.
“The leadership of Aspire Sports and Cultural Trust will now work with partners to close down the business with immediate effect.”