It is good to be able to report some progress, albeit slow, on the Leisure Centre swimming pool.
Most readers will be aware that the operators appointed by Rother District Council, Freedom Leisure, closed the pool at the beginning of November last year with minimum notice and on the grounds that, in view of the dramatic increase in energy costs, it was no longer viable to keep it open.
In his address to the Town Meeting on Tuesday March 7, the mayor, Cllr. Andi Rivett, explained that in an effort to ensure that it was reopened as soon as possible, he had been leading discussions on behalf of Rye with Rother District Council and Freedom Leisure (FL) to try and find a way forward. In this he was aided by William Coatesworth who was well qualified to look into the financial aspects of running the pool and keeping it open.
Undoubtedly the work would have proceeded at a far greater pace had FL been prepared to cooperate to a greater extent than was in fact the case. It was not, it would seem, prepared to divulge the details behind the decision to close the pool nor was it prepared to allow access to their management accounts.
Despite this, Mr Coatesworth was able to produce a model that threw up figures that even FL had to admit were "within £20,000" of its own.
The Leisure Centre has always operated at a deficit and until now this has been funded by a surplus derived from FL operations elsewhere. With the pool closed they claim the centre is showing an annual deficit of £50,000 per annum, but if it was open that figure would increase to £200,000 per annum. At the time of writing, Rye News does not know whether that figure relates to a time earlier last year when energy prices were at their highest or to a later date when there has been a significant reduction. We are assuming the former. Currently wholesale energy costs have reduced to a level below that at the start of the Russian / Ukrainian war in February last year (the spot price as at March 7 2023 was £117 per megawatt hour, down from a peak of £582 per mwh in September 2022 - source: Trading Economics), and this should make a significant difference to further forecasts.
On the plus side, the mayor told us, both FL and Rother have agreed that the Rye community should be given the opportunity to see if it was possible to take over the running of the Leisure Centre and if the town can satisfy FL that this is a realistic prospect, they (FL) would be prepared to provide the funds necessary to reopen the pool and then transfer management of the centre by April. Given this, Rother has agreed to provide the necessary capital costs for building maintenance and supplementary energy systems (e.g. solar panels and/or heat pumps).
While this is positive news, time is very much of the essence and the town clerk has already begun the task of identifying those with specialist knowledge to form a working group. There is a town council meeting scheduled for March 20 and the council will then be asked to confirm that it will take the lead on forming and supporting a working group whose identified members will be appointed at that time.
It is clear that a lot of hard work has been done to reach this stage and while progress, as we remarked earlier, may seem slow, this must largely be down to the recalcitrance of Freedom Leisure and our mayor and his team have done well to achieve all that they have done so far.
We will keep our readers updated with the lastest news as we receive it.
