Dudley Council leader says leisure centres safe for five years
The future of Dudley’s council-run leisure centres is secure for five years according to the authority's leader - despite its financial woes.
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Councillors are set to debate budget proposals which include measures to save £42 million - but leisure centres, libraries and town halls are not in the firing line.
The change comes despite the council searching for outside operators to take over leisure centres and town halls with warnings failure could result in closure because subsidies to keep them going were unaffordable.
Dudley Council’s leader, Councillor Patrick Harley, said: “On our current projection, it may well be we don’t have to discuss these ever again.
“We need to make them more efficient, until that happens we have taken all three out of the budget process so at least all our users and staff can breathe a sigh of relief that they are not part of this.
“For the next five years we will not be doing anything with them apart from trying to find a suitable partner to run the leisure centres, we need to look at libraries and how we make more efficient use of the buildings and town halls, if we can find a partner to run them as a going concern, that works.
“To include them in the budget while that work continues is a distraction.”
The issue of leisure centres has been high on the agenda for the Unity group of Liberal Democrat and independent councillors which currently holds the balance of power in the council chamber.
The Tories have 35 seats, Labour has 32, there is one unaligned independent and Unity, led by Lib Dem Councillor Ryan Priest, has four seats.
Despite the maths, which places Unity in a powerful position, neither side is saying a deal has been done on leisure centres to get the budget approved.
Councillor Priest said: “We won’t vote for anything that does irreversible damage to the borough but a budget has to be set, we can’t allow the government to come in and set a budget, that would be worse.”
Councillor Harley added: “Ryan is very passionate about the leisure centres but there were no deals done, the budget will pass on its merits and I am hopeful all councillors, from all groups will support us.”
