Public meeting on future of leisure in Frome:

Residents and sports clubs are invited to attend a public meeting with local councillors to explore the future of leisure provision in Frome. The forum will take place at the Assembly Rooms on Tuesday March 25^th from 6.30pm to 8.30pm. Mendip District Council has been carrying out a review of its leisure provision, including Frome Leisure Centre, and wants to encourage investment and secure local leisure provision in future.  The meeting will allow local people to be updated on the review, ask questions and help identify options for the future of leisure in Frome.

Please contact me or see here for further details.

Frome Town Council has also expressed concern, at a recent meeting of the External Affairs Committee, that all options for leisure provision, in addition to the private sector deal that Mendip is considering, be discussed, such as forming a not-for-profit Trust to run Frome Leisure Centre. The meeting on 25th March will be a good chance to explore these issues.

On 20th March, commercial property consultants GVA were appointed by Mendip to support the Council in testing the market to establish if operators are willing to take a long term lease over the portfolio. Further details of the work GVA will do for the £31,750 fee (which is within the budget earmarked by Mendip’s Cabinet in December 2013) are with Mendip officers. The notice of decision will be posted here, and states: “Cabinet has approved a detailed market testing exercise to see whether property investors / developers, and other operators, would be prepared to take asset transfers of MDC’s leisure assets under a medium to long term lease. This approach has the potential to deliver significant benefits to the Council and users of the service. For this project to successfully progress property marketing and disposal agency consultancy support is required. GVA have already developed specialised knowledge of this type of groundbreaking approach, through having successfully advised Swindon Borough Council in an identical disposal, and also have another current contract to provide similar services. …”.

I am assured that the Cabinet decision (December 2013, see here) means that Mendip District Council has not yet decided whether to enter into a long-term property deal on leisure centres, as that decision would be made by Cabinet in future after the results of the market testing by GVA has been completed.

Please see here for previous news on leisure, with background to the current situation.

Update 26th March:

Well it was good to see and hear from local people at Mendip District Council’s meeting in Frome. At least it was a start, I hope, and not the end. As I said at the meeting, I want Mendip to consult the public (and taxpayers) before the major decision on the future of the district’s Leisure Centres is made, to inform that decision, and to allow the community to know as much as possible about it. The response from Mendip’s Leader was not positive, but I will continue to argue for it until we get the right answer.

Mendip’s Cabinet has of course not yet decided whether to procure a new management contract or dispose of the facilities on a long-term lease to a private company, but will need to before the autumn. GVA have just been appointed by Mendip to do the marketing (‘soft market testing’) for the latter option, and no one knows what will come back, although I agree it is obvious the Cabinet want to be able to reduce/remove the Council’s subsidy for the Leisure Centres (largely swimming) across the district if they can. There are risks in disposing of the leisure centres in a long-term lease which I have asked be assessed fully. I will keep an eye on it and I hope others do too.

Also a big theme of the night was the need to improve the coordination of sports and leisure activities and facilities in Frome, which is wider than the leisure centre, and to better share facilities between clubs and between sports. Mendip abolished the Sports Development Officer’s role years ago, before my time, but Sport England have identified it as a gap that needs filling. Frome Town Council had a Sports Working Party which looked into this a couple of years ago. Cllr Siggs and Gavin Ball (College Principal) agreed to follow up a number of issues. As I said at the meeting, I am asking for our councils to work together with sports clubs to improve sports and leisure in Frome, such as through a Frome Sports Forum and a coordinator, but it needs people to make it happen. Will anyone step forward to start this up? I have asked the powers that be in Mendip what they can do.

Please see here for previous news on this, and here for the Frome Standard article. I will try and ensure that the meeting was the start of something good, and is not the only meeting Mendip are ever going to organise on this issue. If you were there, or not, what did you think? Please let me know.

 

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