Council's leisure services likely to be bought back in house
But despite providing an 'exemplary' service, leisure staff working in Corby facilities face job losses
By Sarah Ward
The running of council owned leisure services across North Northants is set to be bought back in house.
After almost two years of assessment, surveys with users and financial mapping, North Northamptonshire Council is proposing to take control of all of its leisure assets across its major towns and end the contracts with private providers.
The authority has been running leisure services in Corby since it began in 2021, as this was a legacy arrangement inherited from the former Corby Borough Council. The three other councils that were shut down to create the new unitary, in Wellingborough, East Northants, had outsourced their services to national companies including Freedom Leisure and Places Leisure.
The venues proposed to come back into local authority control are: Corn Market Hall in Kettering and the town’s swimming pool; Desborough Leisure Centre, Nene Leisure centre in Thrapston, the Pemberton Leisure Centre and Splash Leisure Pool in Rushden, Redwell Leisure Centre and Waendal Leisure Centre in Wellingborough.
The council’s investigations have found the in-house services being run in Corby are ‘exemplary’, perform better than the outsourced facilities and also offer a comprehensive active wellbeing service, which is not being offered in other facilities.
The council’s in house services currently provide a wide range of health programmes including helping people with cancer and cardiac rehabilitation and falls prevention. It has gained national recognition for a number of innovations including aquatic rehabilitation initiatives.
However despite performing the best, the report says the leisure staff working at the Corby facilities will be reduced by fifteen percent this financial year ( due to staff to income ratio modelling ), and the creche at Corby swimming pool is due to be closed. Leisure membership in Corby is also set to increase by £2 a month from April.
The matter will be discussed by the council’s place and environment scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (July 28) and officers are advising the scrutiny committee recommends to the Reform UK run cabinet that it approves the proposals.
The plan is to transfer all services back under council control over a twelve month period starting in April. By then all existing contracts will have run out.
The report, written by the council’s head of leisure services Julie Cardwell and director of communities and leisure Kerry Purnell, says that in March more than 1350 responses were received to a visioning survey, which asked residents what mattered to them.
The report says:
“Overall, the preference was for a balanced service offer, including broad access to facilities and services; outreach and family activities across North Northamptonshire; targeted offers for inclusion groups such as disabled residents, vulnerable young people and older people; health prevention and rehabilitation services, alongside modern facilities and strong digital systems to support residents’ health and wellbeing.”
The authority had considered a hybrid approach, in which some services were brought in house and others remained with private providers, but decided it is not viable.
The report says:
“The hybrid mode, whereby Active Communities, Leisure Management functions and leisure capital programmes remain in-house, but leisure facilities in more deprived or targeted areas are in-house and the rest are outsourced through a single external contractor, was considered but has been discounted.
“This is partly due to the complexity of financial modelling required and higher risks around delivery and performance management; but primarily due to the fact that it would result in the continuation of inconsistent service, pricing and access and therefore a postcode lottery for residents. The visioning survey made it really clear that a universal and consistent offer is what our residents want to see.”
The report says the leisure service cost £3.575m to run last year and generated an income of £10m, with 40 per cent of the income coming from swimming lessons.
Residents will be able to access any centre under a membership contract and there will be one fixed price for membership introduced in April 2028. Care leavers, foster carers and their young people and serving armed forces personnel, veterans and high level sports performers will get free provision under a new concessions arrangement.
As part of the plans the Corn Market Hall in London Road, Kettering could be sold off or used for let for commercial use.