The challenges
By 2000, the majority of Rotherham’s 12 council run leisure
facilities, which had been built in the seventies, were ageing.
Mainly small swimming pools, they had significant structural
problems and failing equipment.
In addition, changes to Rotherham’s population and the decline
in its traditional coal and steel industries, meant that some pools
were in the wrong place. The communities they were built to serve
had relocated.
Maintenance costs were rising each year, some were becoming too
expensive to repair and faced closure; the quality of the
facilities was declining and no funding was available to update
them to provide for changing interests
With usage declining, due to the poor quality of the
accommodation, it was becoming more and more difficult to attract
low participant groups.
The approach
Rotherham council worked with Sport England to develop a long
term, strategic plan for indoor swimming pool and sports provision
across the area. The project began in 2001 and the final leisure
centre was opened in February 2010.
Surveys of each facility’s condition showed that the most
efficient and effective solution was a dramatic one – to close all
of the existing facilities and replace them with four new
multi-sport centres. These would be strategically located to ensure
that every member of the community had access to at least one
site.
The locations were established using Sport England’s Facility
Planning Model. This helped the council analyse the likely demand
for swimming across the area and the scale of facilities required
to meet this demand.
A number of scenarios of facility numbers, scale and location
were tested to determine the most effective and efficient scheme
for provision across the district. This also allowed for existing
and planned facilities in neighbouring authorities.
Council members were involved throughout the process. Sharing
information about the scale of the problems, the developing plan
and the scenarios used to test it were crucial to winning support
for this radical approach.
Community meetings were held throughout the borough to
explain the plans, receive local views and develop understanding of
the proposal. Clubs and other user groups were also involved and
this helped to shape the specification and the programming of the
new facilities.
The cost of the new leisure contract was pegged to the council
budget for leisure facility operation and maintenance in 2003/04
plus inflation. This helped to control costs and ensure value for
money.
The results
Rotherham now has a network of high quality community leisure
centres which are strategically located so that the whole community
has good access to at least one facility.
The new centres are multi-sport facilities and are more in line
with consumer demands. As a result, the new centres attract a much
wider range of users than the previous pools.
The facilities are contracted out to DC Leisure Management in a
32 year contract ensuring a sustainable, high quality service with
long term certainty on costs. The council has made significant
savings by not repairing and upgrading its existing stock.
Usage of the new centres is significantly higher than the former
network, even though there were previously more sites. In the last
full year of operation there were 848,000 visits to the 12
facilities. In 2009/10 with only three of the four new sites fully
operational visits had risen to 957,000.
The lessons
- Within the council the role of the Director of Culture and
Leisure Services was crucial in selling the vision to members and
inspiring them to see the benefits rather than the problems
- The comprehensive, evidence-based approach was critical to
delivering the project, providing clear, objective information to
council members and the community on the reasons why pools had to
close and showing that the new network would meet local needs. It
was also crucial in gaining Private Finance Initiative credits and
taking advantage of other opportunities that occurred (e.g.
Prudential Borrowing and NOF PE and Sport Funding)
- The management contract works best if it operates as a
partnership with give and take rather than a strict client
contractor relationship
More information
Email
Rotherham's Leisure Service Manager, Steve Hallsworth