Tories are non-committal over residents leisure wishes. (Reigate Liberal Democrats)

Reigate Liberal Democrats <info@reigatelibdems.org.uk>

Tories are non-committal over residents leisure wishes.

June 28, 2006 10:00 PM

Donyngs Leisure Centre in Redhill At a public meeting this evening where the Council tried to convince it's residents of the benefits of the Leisure Centre review, the Conservative panel started the presentation reminding residents that "They don't have to provide any Leisure facilities. They are entirely discretionary".

They also pointed out that over the last 10 years, Local Authority spend on leisure has not increased. These years have been under Tory control.

One of the possible types of solutions proposed is referred to as a 'shared use' facility. This would be to spend residents money on upgrading leisure facilities in the Borough schools. Residents asked how the two obvious issues would be addressed. The first is allowing ordinary unmonitored members of the public to mingle with school children during a school day. The second is that to provide this facility, the schools would require enormous financial investment from the Borough Council. If in the future the LEA decided to close down the school, we would lose the facility.

To help them arrive at the correct conclusion they surveyed only 2000 people. This is compared to 500,000 visits per year at Donyngs alone. It was also highlighted that the council had not researched all the groups that currently make use of the existing facilities.

The overwhelming view of residents is that swimming pools are absolutely essential. In the light of energy costs having increased by 80-100%, it is not unreasonable to see why these duel use schools may not want to fund the running costs of the pools.

The Tory council have acted in an undemocratic fashion. They have not consulted properly with the community that uses the leisure facilities and they have cancelled the working group of elected representatives that was supposed to examine the options for the Boroughs leisure provision.