A period of up to 15 minutes is allowed for members of the public to make a comment, ask questions or present petitions. Each member of the public has up to 3 minutes to do this. A councillor may also present a petition on behalf of a member of the public.
Minutes:
The Chairman announced that there had been a question raised by a member of the public.
Julie Woods
When the new leisure centre project started we were told that the existing sports hall couldn't be retained and refurbished, My understanding was that there could be structural issues as a result of having to demolish the old leisure centre.
When negotiations with BAM for the use of NBHS was unsuccessful refurbishment of the old sports hall became one of the five options available to the Council.
Can you explain why this became an option recently when it wasn't before please?
Was the initial information presented to Councillors, to aid their decision making, inaccurate or possibly the full facts unknown?
Councillor P. J. Whittaker, Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Cultural and Community Services responded that when the new leisure project was agreed by elected Members the redevelopment proposals were predicated on the new centre being able to generate sufficient revenue from the facilities to meet the prudential borrowing requirements in place from the Public Loans Board. The context of this had been to ensure that the new facilities did not place a greater burden on the general tax payer than was already the case by providing the Dolphin Centre.
Councillor Whittaker reminded everyone that when the feasibility study was completed and the associated costs and available funding reviewed, a decision had been made on the facility mix for the new site that did not include a replacement Sports Hall. This was because, as part of the wider project, the extra capital cost that would have been required to build the extra facilities and the limited return that would be offered would have meant that the prudential borrowing requirements would not be satisfied. Therefore the whole scheme could not have been progressed without alternative funding being brought forward from within the Council’s Medium Term Finical Plan.
At the time reference had been made to the possibility of refurbishing the current Sports Hall and for a wide variety of reasons which included:
· Additional Costs that would be incurred.
· Risk of demolition given the structural concerns that existed and whether professional indemnity could be achieved.
· Increased operational costs and the impact on the prudential borrowing position.
· Lose of enabling land and reduction in capital receipt that was underpinning the prudential borrowing position of the agree scheme.
This option was not felt to be economically viable as the costs incurred would still mean that the prudential borrowing requirements would not be satisfied and the positon would remain the same regardless of which option was considered to be the preferred route to maintain a Sports Hall within the facility mix.
As such the discussions that were held and the decisions that were made were based on affordability and viability as detailed in the feasibility studies that were commissioned.
Refurbishment of the Sports Hall was not an option that was within the feasibility studies and the possibility of its refurbishment was only raised after the formal decision was made. It was confirmed that these questions had been responded to at the time and it is clear that the structural issue and concerns were part of the reasoning as to why it was not considered to be appropriate. However, the overriding reasoning was based on the financial viability implications for the whole project and the Sport England Facility Planning Model data sets that showed an oversupply of sports halls in the local area following the demolition of the Dolphin Centre site.
Councillor Whittaker reminded Members that they would be debating the Sport Hall position and the Cabinet’s recommendation later in the agenda as a separate feasibility study had been commissioned to review this matter in order to understand what the position was at this time. Within the studies cost proposals there was an allowance for the risks associated with the demolition and structural risk which had been factored into the financial appraisal provided.
Officers had also asked the current operator to provide provisional running costs for the refurbishment option and the option to have a proposed new sports hall adjacent to the BSLC building to ensure sufficient information was provided to understand the issue before a detailed design and financial assessment was undertaken.
It was highlighted that as part of the report the Council had reviewed the possibility of a refurbishment option and as suggested previously this remained unaffordable as the gap between the available funding and the capital costs meant the scheme could not meet prudential borrowing requirements.