Council goes to great lengths to decide future of new pool

Already Calderdale councillors are considering whether the facility in Bradford Road should continue to be managed by Calderdale Council or be run by other organisations.

Eight options were discussed by members of the safer and stronger scrutiny panel and it was decided that a working party, made up of councillors and officers, would be set up to discuss each of the options in detail.

These are to: maintain the current arrangement of direct council management; fund alternative models such as enterprise, schools, voluntary sector and private sector to deliver the services; or withdraw from the services altogether.

The working party will be set up at the next meeting in June and will hold three meetings to discuss each of the eight options and possible ways they could generate more income to cut back on the amount of cuts they would need to make.

Deputy council leader Tim Swift, (Lab, Town) said: “We are interested to look at all the options – we don’t have a fixed position though we would not be happy to see a private operator step in and take over at Brighouse or anywhere else. The danger would be that they would simply cherry-pick all the new facilities but not take on the older ones.

“Some kind of community trust as operates in Kirklees might be worth looking at.

“They have had a leisure trust for many years which has a very close liaison with Kirklees council and that seems to work well.”

Coun Colin Stout (Ind, Brighouse) said they listened to people in 1997 when they said they wanted a new pool.”

He said that it had been pointed out that £660,000 worth of cuts in the leisure services budget would have to be found over the next year.

“But rather than cutting £660,000 we decided that we could generate that amount with the facilities we have by making them more attractive to people. So we turned it around. We were told at the meeting that we are 106 per cent over target in membership at Brighouse for the gym and swimming pool so it just shows how fit people in Brighouse want to be.