Future of sports centre may be secured with community help

Sheffield Council was given a grant by the Government to build the centre on the site of Wisewood secondary school in Stannington in 2004 to support its designation as a specialist sports college.

But a few years later it was decided that the under-subscribed Wisewood school would be closed as part of the city’s Building Schools for the Future scheme, a move criticised by some parents.

Pupils who currently attend Wisewood, and the neighbouring Myers Grove School, will return to classes in a new building on the Myers Grove site in September, which will be known as Forge Valley School.

Meanwhile, the sports centre will be maintained on the site of the closed school by Sheffield Council, after it emerged that it would be liable to repay the £1.8m Government grant if the centre shut.

Council officers will tell a meeting of the authority’s ruling cabinet today that the so-called “clawback” arrangement over the centre would impact directly on already stretched education budgets.

Instead of closing the centre and taking the financial hit, they suggest exploring options which could mean allowing a community group to buy and run the centre, while part of the site is sold off, possibly for houses.

A public consultation has already been carried out with people who live close to the site who say they want the centre to remain open, but no firm offers of interest in taking on its running have been made.

Senior officers said that for now, the council will continue to run the centre, but added that further consultation will continue on how the authority can dispose of the site completely.

Last year, when the consultation was first launched, leading councillors told officers that the Wisewood site must be used to make money for the council to help pay the bill for its new schools.

Sheffield Council needs to find £23.7m, or 10 per cent of its total Building Schools for the Future funding as part of its agreement with the Government, and selling the land will contribute to this.

Sheffield was one of a few areas of the country to see its Building Schools for the future budget escape unscathed after Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove slashed the project’s £55bn budget.

The report to tomorrow’s meeting suggests that around 30 per cent of the Wisewood site will be sold, while other buildings may be sold or leased to other public bodies, such as the NHS and police.

Nalin Seneviratne, Sheffield Council’s director of property and facilities management services, said: “We have already carried out some consultation work but we want to take this further.

“We want to make sure all local people get the chance to have their say over the site’s future, while balancing the need to generate funds for investment in schools.

“The future of this site and how it is managed should be community led which is why we are very keen to make sure local people’s views are heard.

“Ideally we would like to see this being owned and operated by the local community for the local community.”

The £20m scheme to close Wisewood School and merge it with Myers Grove had been on the drawing board for almost five years, but had drawn criticism.

One parent, Lucy Fairest, even tried to halt the council’s idea by taking it to judicial review, but her claim that the authority had not carried out adequate consultation was rejected by High Court judge Mr Justice Stanley Burnton last summer.

Education bosses said they were forced to merge the under-subscribed schools because doing nothing may have jeopardised £250m Building Schools for the Future funding for the entire city.