Our webmaster asked about the recent Leisure Centre controversy.  It is a Rushcliffe Borough Council matter, so with my 'Rushcliffe Hat' here goes:.

East Leake Leisure Centre was built under a Private Financial Initiative (PFI) scheme as part of the re-built Harry Carlton school. Those who remember the old school, complete with buckets to catch the water where the roof leaked, will remember the previous Leisure Centre and artificial turf five-a-side pitch was well used with an excellent record despite not having a swimming pool and the feeder school kids being bussed to Keyworth for lessons.

When the new school was built, the plans included a new Leisure Centre (a like-for-like replacement without a swimming pool) so that the old one could be knocked down and the site used for housing - now part of Osier Fields. After a lot of lobbying and the diversion of a large chunk of Parish planning gain from the Gotham Road estate into the project, the new Leisure Centre was built as it is today. It has been maintained and run, since it was built, by the holder of the PFI contract (as part of the contract) - originally McAlpine then, after a take-over, Carillion.

At the five-year contract review, the Rushcliffe Borough Council were presented with a notice to terminate the contract to run the centre by Carillion who were losing too much money. The contract had no provision for the facility to be returned to 'in-house' running, however initial negotiations led to an agreement that they would keep the centre open for a few months if the council paid to cover their losses (around quarter of a million pounds in a full year) and give the Borough Council access and time to enable a review including an energy audit to be completed.

The Borough Council could not see any future in closing the facility and still paying for the building cost under the PFI contract - there is little point in paying for a mortgage on a building that you are not going to live in, and will simply be boarded up for 18 years.

After the Borough Council employed a consultant, it was very quickly realised that the school were not paying the correct contribution to the utility bills, and the PFI scheme was failing in that there was no incentive to keep the site energy bills under control. At a considerable cost to the Borough Council, the meters were checked with new meters added, and some in the school (so I am told) were found to be connected wrong with one being bypassed, and another was giving wildly incorrect readings by being upside down (presumably since the school was built).

Not only was the whole site energy inefficient, but the PFI scheme did not provide a pool cover. The consultant expects that the pay-back for a cover in energy saving is likely to be fifteen months (Surely a "no brainer" that we should have one like every other Leisure Centre in Rushcliffe). So much for doing our part to control and reverse climate change!

After much hard negotiating and brinkmanship, an agreement has been reached that the Leisure Centre's utility bills will be reduced to be roughly the same as Keyworth Leisure centre - a similar size facility, but over 40 years old. The unofficial motto of Rushcliffe Borough Council is 'putting the residents interest first', and whilst locally there were some who wanted to simply pay up, signing (in effect) a blank cheque - as a member of the cabinet I and my fellow councillors had to support and encourage the officers of the council to get some control over the situation. The result is not perfect, and has left a very low opinion of the whole PFI concept (some say lessons have been learned since we 'the Harry' was the first in Nottinghamshire - we will see!).  

So the Leisure Centre is safe until the next review in four years time, although it is costing the council tax payers of Rushcliffe half a million pounds a year in PFI payments and un-recovered running costs.

There are several questions that go unanswered -

• Why did the company with responsibility for the building not invest in a pool cover?
• Why did they not realise (as the consultant did on his first visit) that the charges going to the Leisure Centre account were unreasonable? 
• Why should a building built seven years ago appear to be less energy efficient than one built forty two years ago (Keyworth). And with, we hope, our young people being educated on the impact of global warming and the need to save energy, what example does it set them when the buildings on the school site would appear to be so energy inefficient.

In the present economic climate, the future of the Leisure Centre is not secure beyond the four year review. We need to increase the usage, particularly at off-peak times and get the energy use of the whole site down to sustainable levels. The financial burden of the Leisure Centre (never mind the school) is huge - roughly four times the annual turnover of the Parish Council, which puts it well beyond any idea of Parish Council subsidy.

The Borough Council will soon be conducting a review of Leisure Centre strategy. If you would like to have a say, feed it back to the Borough Council. Whilst the biggest single issue we face in Rushcliffe is the housing demands for building land, the need to provide Leisure Facilities that are environmentally sustainable to go alongside the housing stock and the other infrastructure needed is all part of "the Big Picture" - see http://www.thebigpicture-rushcliffe.com/ 

Ron Hetherington