Agenda item

a)        Joint Report of the Director of Transformation and Partnerships and the Corporate Director of Regeneration and Local Services

b)        Presentation by the Head of Culture and Sport Services

Members considered the Joint Report of the Corporate Director of Regeneration and Local Services and Director of Transformation and Partnerships that provided Members with supporting information in advance of a presentation on the Culture and Sport Service (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

Mr S Howell, the Head of Culture and Sport Services was in attendance to deliver a presentation to Members that gave an overview of the service and specifically looked at the Service Vision; Nature and Scope of Services; Key Projects and Improvement Boards; Challenges and Opportunities (for copy of slides, see file of minutes).

Members were advised there were three key delivery elements to provide residents, students and visitors with access to a balanced culture and sport offer – resources, service inputs and capability.

The Head of Culture and Sports informed members that the service offer includes leisure centres, libraries, theatres, collections and museums, countryside estate, festivals and events, outdoor sports playing pitches and pavilions and culture and sport development. The service has expenditure of £34.7 and income of £14.1 million with a net operating cost of £20.6 million. The service employs circa 2000 although these are mostly on a casual and part time basis. The service has achieved £9.9 million in savings since 2009.

Members were advised that the service deliver outcomes through strategic partnership working. It has a very strong reputation with national, regional and local sector partners. The vision and strategic business case of the authority is realised vis project boards and business improvement boards. The Head of Culture and Sport gave the following example of tier one projects: - leisure facility transformation, library transformation and general staff restructuring. Examples of tier one improvement areas given were prevent agenda, quality standards, countryside and parks. Challenges to the service include tired building stock; time limited contracts and capacity. However, there are opportunities for the service with invest to save initiatives; cross service working; partnerships and digitisation. The future direction of the service includes modernising, delivery and reshaping.

Following the presentation the Chairman commented that there was a broad range of services which were not all in the remit of this committee but the main features were the countryside, parks and leisure centres.

Mr Kinch referred to the countryside estates and the railway route from Barnard Castle to Bishop Auckland that was to be adapted as a cycle route and sought clarification if the service were still looking into improving this route.

The Head of Culture and Sport advised that this was 180 kilometres of railway path linking up between Barnard Castle and Bishop Auckland areas. However, there was a section that Durham County Council did not own the land and were looking for the landowner, but cannot do anything until Durham County Council owns the land.

Councillor Jopling referred to her area which had small nature parks and facilities for children, which were costly to install but had been achieved via community fundraising efforts, but were not maintained.

The Officer advised the Member that the Clean and Green team are responsible for maintenance and commented that communities fund the parks but do not have an agreement for the maintenance and the councils funds are shrinking.

Councillor Kay referred to the cycle route from Bishop Auckland to Barnard Castle, which is a national cycle coastal route number 715. In places the route was not up to standard and some parts were impossible to pass. He asked the Officer if this was the area that the Council were proposing to purchase. The Officer responded that the area of land the Council were hoping to purchase was not accessible and you needed to physically lift your bike over the area.

Councillor Kay then referred to Woodhouse Close Leisure Complex, which has just been refreshed and asked how much subsidy per annum had been put into the swimming pool.

The Officer advised Members that it cost approximately £500,000 net subsidy per year to run the site. It suffered both from the perspective of being an old building with higher maintenance costs and was not attractive to customers therefore generated less income.  The gymnasium is in a part of the building that was not originally planned for this purpose and suffered comparatively with newer facilities with purpose built gyms. The Head of Service gave comparisons with other leisure centres and advised that Spennymoor and Newton Aycliffe cost the same amount but the offer at these leisure centres is excellent. A leisure centre similar to Meadowfield which was basically a sports hall was about £200,000 per annum.

The Chairman asked if this was something that the improvement board would look at. The Officer responded that there was 14 sites across the County and confirmed that this was something the improvement board would look at.

Councillor Avery referred to the Leisure Centre in his area which was now run by volunteers and was doing well.

The Officer advised that following Local Government Review in 2009 leisure centres in Coxhoe and Ferryhill had been taken over by the community and the service had learned lessons from what had happened at this time and was pleased to report all leisure centres ran by communities were doing well.

Councillor Clare thanked the Head of Service for a stimulating talk and had two comments first was that he was particularly interested in the difference between commercial opportunities and health aims. Secondly, that Members put money in to parks and then the maintenance is left, sustainability is particularly important to councillors especially when using neighbourhood budgets and suggested that councillors should pay more thought sustainability features.

The Head of Service advised the commercial vs. social was kept in mind and advised if the leisure centres just wanted to make money they could do this by hiring sports halls for money. They programme sports halls to ensure there are slots for all in the community e.g. badminton clubs, exercise classes, children’s clubs this costs DCC and adds to the pressure but is better for communities.  An example was given in relation to sustainable projects such as Wharton Park where funds had been placed on revenue account because of future costs expected such as repairs.

The Chairman commented that capital was difficult for communities to raise and was up to communities to maintain but was also fraught with danger.

Councillor Manchester sought clarification on the income generated and how it had changed over the last 3 years.

The Officer gave Members details of the income and advised Members that they looked at the market when determining the fees and charges. He gave an example of a new gym that opened in Newton Aycliffe so in response the leisure centre reduced its fees so that they were competitive and resulted in more customers for the leisure centre and 2-3% growth. The Officer advised that cinema usage in Durham City was dropping and was expected to drop more following the opening of two new cinemas in the City.

Mr Bolton asked if they had a scheme to bring young people into leisure centres.

The Officer responded that the leisure centres were predominantly used by adults but they had other programmes that they delivered in schools and some schools did PE in the leisure centres. The service works with colleagues in Education and there had been work schools around sports club development this had been done at Consett. The Officer advised that they also work with colleagues on obesity programmes.

Councillor Wilson referred to pavilions and asked if there was a programme for maintenance.

The Officer responded that they carried out maintenance to pavilions to ensure they were safe, the problem was that they deteriorated quickly. They used to get grants for pavilions but Sports England do not fund anymore and some pavilions had been replaced by porta cabins.

Councillor Wilson commented that the pavilion in her ward at Bearpark was lovely but it was not maintained.

The Officer responded that football pitches had not generated much income and those using the pavilions as changing rooms had not criticised the state of them, so it was difficult to argue the cost of keeping the pavilions up to standard  as the pressure on the capital programme were vast.

Councillor Sexton referred to the cost of parking at leisure centres and asked the officer if he had any data that people used alternative gyms due to the parking charges and limited spaces.

The Officer responded that it was mixed positions at leisure centres throughout the County. At Consett parking was free but at Freemans Quay there was no free parking. Parking charges had recently been introduced at Hardwick Park this generated income which went back into the park. The Officer did not think there was a pattern on usage of leisure centres due to parking charges but he could look at this.

The Chairman asked Members to agree the recommendations.

Councillor Clare referred to the recommendations and commented that there was nothing to look at any future work and asked that a further recommendation be included that the committee look at the topic in a future work programme.

The Chairman advised Members that the future work programme would be considered at the next meeting of the Committee.

Resolved: (i) That the information contained in the report and presentation be noted.

(ii) That Members consider including the topic in the future work programme.