Financial support for Littlehampton Wave agreed allowing it to reopen

Support for Arun’s main leisure centres has been agreed paving the way for them to reopen later this month.
The Littlehampton Wave leisure centre SUS-190325-115258001The Littlehampton Wave leisure centre SUS-190325-115258001
The Littlehampton Wave leisure centre SUS-190325-115258001

Arun District Council owns Littlehampton Wave and Bognor Regis’ Arun Leisure Centre, both of which are operated by Freedom Leisure.

The facilities have both been closed during lockdown but are set to reopen on Saturday July 25.

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Back in April the council’s chief executive agreed to defer Freedom Leisure’s payment of fees and provide financial support for the upkeep of the leisure facilities while they remained closed.

At a full council meeting last week, it was agreed to defer the monthly payment obligations for the remainder of 2020/21 and extend the contract expiry date by a further six months and also make £270,000 available to support the leisure operating contract.

Gill Yeates, cabinet member for community wellbeing, pointed out that even to keep the leisure centres closed would still cost the council another estimated £136,000 over the next three months.

She said: “Simply to pay such a sum to deny the public access to the health and wellbeing opportunities delivered by Freedom Leisure in our superb facilities would be difficult to justify.”

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Last year the council received around £720,000 from the leisure contract.

Several Conservative councillors raised concerns about the financial risks and wanted more information before signing off the decisions.

Philippa Dart, director of services, said: “The situation is unprecedented. This is not support for Freedom Leisure, this is support to our leisure contract in order that our leisure centres open to serve our community.”

Grant Roberts (Con, Arundel and Walberton) said they were looking at a worst case scenario of well over a million pounds and was worried the council was ‘moving too fast’.

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He added: “I do not think we have enough information here to make a good decision. I fully support leisure but I just do not know enough at the moment. There’s too much guessing and too much unknown.”

But deputy leader Francis Oppler accused some members of ‘playing politics with the health and wellbeing of our residents in Arun’.

But Cllr Roberts hit back saying this was about looking after the council’s finances, adding; “I do not think the cabinet member has much of a clue of what is going on with the questions we have raised and the answers we have got tonight.”

Andy Cooper (Con, Angmering and Findon) added: “I believe we have seen this evening that the administration simply do not have all the answers. I believe this could have been put across better.”

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It was highlighted how extra government funding could be made available in the future to help the situation.

Tony Dixon (Ind, Aldwick East) pointed out that if they did not provide the financial help they would struggle to get anywhere near as favourable terms for their next leisure contract.

He said: “It’s all about calculated risk. It would have been helpful if the government would have stepped in earlier. We’re in this position because the government have not given us clarity early enough.”

Cabinet member for technical services Matt Stanley pointed out that the leisure centres were significant local employers and felt a deferral of the payments was a ‘sensible way forward’.

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The recommendations were agreed with three abstentions, one due to technical reasons.

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