Adur District Council has assured residents that it will take all steps possible to secure sustainable leisure services in the future following the announcement that the company running centres is facing collapse.
Impulse Leisure, trading locally as Adur Community Leisure (ACL), which runs all leisure and recreational services from three centres in the district, announced it was in severe difficulty with up to 150 jobs at risk.
The leisure centres affected are Lancing Manor Leisure Centre, Southwick Leisure Centre and Wadurs Community Pool in Shoreham which are all owned by Adur District Council. The Council awarded Impulse a 30-year contract to run leisures services out of the centres in 2005. Any financial surplus goes to the company, not to the Council, in addition to the Council paying an annual Service Fee to ACL to deliver the services.
Cllr Emma Evans, Adur District Council's Executive Member for the Environment, said:
“We understand how devastating this news must be to a large number of staff during these uncertain times. We will do all we can to try to reopen those centres as soon as is practicable. Obviously these are difficult times for many businesses and leisure centres are no exception.
“The Council has done everything possible to support Impulse moving forward. But we also have a duty to local taxpayers to ensure that local services are operated efficiently and cannot place a large financial burden on the authority to prop up an external organisation.
“But we believe there is a solid future for these centres if we can find the right operator. The lockdown has proved that people are looking to become more active and if we can look imaginatively at future offerings I see no reason why we can't return these centres to full health at the heart of their communities, with a more robust community based leisure arrangement ”
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