Issue - meetings

Wellbeing Portfolio

To consider report HPS/32 of the Head of Major Projects & Commercial Services.

RESOLVED

That the Cabinet:

a)            approves the extension of the contract variation with EA under the terms set out in section 5 of report HPS/32.

b)            requests a further report be brought to Cabinet in Spring 2023 to apprise councillors of the future of the leisure contract and associated payments.

Reasons for the Recommendations

The recommendation facilitates the continued re-opening of the leisure centres providing the opportunity to continue to grow the customer base and membership numbers while ensuring the Council is using mechanisms within the contract with EA to ensure a legally compliant approach.

The Cabinet Member for Wellbeing presented report HPS/32 of the Head of Major Projects and Commercial Services.  The report recommended approval of the extension of the contract variation to 31 March 2023 with Everyone Active for the Sport & Leisure Management Contract. The recommendation facilitated the continued re-opening of the leisure centres providing the opportunity to continue to grow the customer base and membership numbers while ensuring the Council was using mechanisms within the contract with EA to ensure a legally compliant approach.

The Head of Major Projects and Commercial Services provided the Cabinet with supplementary information about the current membership and attendance rates at K2 Crawley leisure centre, which were steadily increasing but had not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Councillor Crow was invited to speak on the item and in doing so welcomed the growing membership and attendance figures.  It was suggested that there should be no further extensions to the contract variation past March 2023.

Councillors S Mullins and Jones spoke as part of the discussion on the report.  It was highlighted that the relationship between the Council and Everyone Active was important and that the proposed extension to the variation would allow attendance at leisure centres to continue to increase over the coming months.  Cabinet members agreed that they hoped to return to the original contract in April 2023.

RESOLVED

That the Cabinet:

a)      approves the extension of the contract variation with EA under the terms set out in section 5 of report HPS/32.

b)      requests a further report be brought to Cabinet in Spring 2023 to apprise councillors of the future of the leisure contract and associated payments.

Reasons for the Recommendations

The recommendation facilitates the continued re-opening of the leisure centres providing the opportunity to continue to grow the customer base and membership numbers while ensuring the Council is using mechanisms within the contract with EA to ensure a legally compliant approach.