By Cllr Marie-Louise Weighill
Late last month, in the face of public opposition and concern, Wokingham Borough Council began the transfer of the management and effective ownership of St Crispin’s Leisure Centre from the Council to the Circle Trust, the organisation responsible for the running of St Crispin’s School.
To save the Council the cost of funding new school places the site will be signed over for the next 125 years and a much-loved and valued community asset will be lost.
For that reason I voted against the recommendation, the only councillor to do so.
The transfer has been variously described by the Liberal Democrat leadership of the Council as a “stark choice” (between losing the centre and potential bankruptcy since funding the required new school places would tip the council into deficit) and a “bright future” of partnership and continued community access.
Both explanations obscure the reality of what is happening here – that an asset built for and by the Wokingham community will be effectively lost to public control now and in the future.
When the scrutiny committee met to consider the recommendation, the management of the Circle Trust spoke warmly of community and cooperation but the fact is that transferring the leisure centre will mean that the interests of the school administration will always be paramount in deciding and promoting the use of the centre.
The council’s outsourced provider of leisure services has stated that there is no possibility of the leisure facilities in non-school hours being financially viable – if this is the case for a leisure company which at least had the potential for cross-subsidisation, it will certainly be the case for a school.
It will not be (and shouldn’t be) acceptable to subsidise leisure provision with money meant for students.
The most likely outcome of this decision will be a gradual decline in community use of the facilities at St Crispin’s. It is not only the current users of the centre – particularly older people who use the facilities for essential exercise and social participation – who will lose but potential users in the future. In this case, as in so many others, cuts in services are not savings. There will be a significant cost, for example, in terms of the health of former users who can no longer access exercise.
Residents in my ward of Norreys, as well as users of the Centre from across the Borough, have said they believe the decision to close the Leisure Centre was made in advance After a long anticipatory period of underfunding to the centre they understandably feel that despite the language of consultation and participation used during the process there was only one outcome that would ever have been chosen.
The leadership of the council speaks of hard choices and the possibilities of partnerships but in effect, the closure is the culmination of 13 years of ratcheting budget cuts, underfunding, loss of public control and a failure of belief in the need and potential for local, democratically accountable provision of services.
Since the onset of austerity in 2010, local authorities have increasingly become implementers of central government cuts rather than leaders of their areas, committed to the improvement of people’s lives.
Austerity was never about efficiency or “cutting the fat”, it was about the degradation of local provision and the transformation of councils to service administrators, outsourcing the greater part of their responsibilities to the private sector.
This has resulted in not only a grinding reduction of the scope and quality of public services – postal services, road repair and support for children in crisis to name only a few – but a continual crisis in local government funding where imminent bankruptcy is a constant threat used to justify every reduction in facilities.
The current funding model is driving councils everywhere to insolvency. This is not a bug but a feature of the system – it is designed to take away local government’s power and independence leaving the gap between the public and their government to be bridged by private companies if at all.
And, as is the case with the Circle Trust, such entities are accountable to their funders not to the people with whom they work.
The people of Wokingham deserve services and an improvement of their lives as of right, not doled out as benevolence or “community feeling” by entities over whom they have no oversight or control.
It is perfectly true to say that the current leadership of the council did not choose the system that currently operates but they can and do choose how to engage with it.
Along with my fellow Labour councillors, I shall continue to push for the protection of the public sphere and for more honesty and transparency in decisions related to its future.
We shall also seek greater local involvement in deciding how the facilities of St Crispin’s are made available to the people of Wokingham.
Ultimately though, the problem is a national and structural one.
A future Labour Government will act to support local councils both in their relations with central government funding and in building long-term growth and thriving local economies which can support the services that our residents deserve.
Cllr Marie-Louise Weighill is Labour ward member for Norreys on Wokingham Borough Council
