The future of leisure provision in Frome will be decided at a meeting on Monday and I would urge people to go along and find out what will be on offer.

Mendip District Council (MDC) announced in late 2013 that it was seeking bids for the leases (or subleases) on the 5 leisure centres in the district (including Frome, Wells, Strode, Tor (Glastonbury) and Shepton Lido), in order to secure new investment to maintain and improve leisure centres and reduce the Council’s subsidy, after the current management contract with Western Community Leisure Trust and Avalon ends in May 2015. For over a year I have attended meetings of the MDC Leisure Strategy Steering Group with other councillors, and have been monitoring the situation and asking challenging questions about the risks and benefits of this approach. I was fully informed at the last meeting 2 weeks ago about which organisations put in final bids, the Council’s preferred bidder and the terms of the bid, but details are confidential until the decision by Mendip’s Cabinet on 24^th November. I can say that, I have raised a lot of concerns up to now, but I am now happy how this is going (and can explain why at and after 24^th November).

The Cabinet meeting is a public meeting and a joint one with the Scrutiny Board, on Monday 24^th November, 6pm-9pm, at MDC, Cannards Grave, Shepton Mallet. For Mendip’s press release please see here. For the meeting agenda please see item 6 here: http://www.mendip.gov.uk/article/3629/Monday-24-November-2014

To register to speak at the meeting please see here: https://www.mendip.gov.uk/speak

The press story is here: http://www.fromestandard.co.uk/Bidders-stake-claim-future-leisure-services/story-24568247-detail/story.html.

My previous articles on this are all here.