One of the problems facing not only Freedom Leisure, but also Rother District Council and the Rye team negotiating a take over of the Leisure Centre management, has been the uncertainty relating to future costs.
The price of energy has been steadily falling for some time and this trend is expected to continue over the medium term. This is certainly good news, but the bad news to date has been that the chancellor of the exchequer, while continuing to help mitigate energy costs for other industries, has not been prepared to extend this to the leisure sector.
Operators or leisure centres and some MPs - including Rye's own MP, Sally-Ann Hart - have been lobbying hard to persuade Jeremy Hunt to change his mind and it would appear from today's budget that they have met with some success. There is to be a fund, totalling £63 million for England of which part is to help cover excess energy costs and the remainder to be used to cut emissions and improve energy efficiency in the long term.
Rye News understands that the fund will be managed by Sport England and will allow local authorities to apply for funding for leisure centres with pools that face immediate cost pressures (including, one assumes, closure) as well as operational and maintenance costs, and energy bills.
It is to be hoped that the Rye team will ensure that Rother applies on their behalf at the first opportunity (it is not yet known how long it will take for the fund and its management to be operational).
This is only for this year and there is no guarantee that it will be repeated in future years, but, by giving greater certainty for the next 12 months, it should help to ease the transition of management from Freedom Leisure to Rye community. Rye's share of the fund could extend not only to current repairs, but also to assist in providing energy saving equipment such as solar panels, heat pumps and possibly the new invention of data centre-generated heat currently being trialled in one West Country leisure centre.
A word of caution, though. £63 million may sound a lot but there have been many swimming pool closures in the last year and many others on the brink of closure. The fund could end up being spread pretty thinly and prove to be not quite as generous as it seems at first glance. It will also, of course, be a prime responsibility of our two elected RDC councillors to ensure that any money allocated to our district comes first to Rye and does not get swallowed up by Bexhill Leisure Centre which is, itself, in need of substantial updating or replacement.
