Hundreds of people gathered in Ripley on Wednesday evening (24th May) to show councillors know how important Belper Leisure Centre is to them.
All six Green Party councillors1 met them in the Market Place and talked to people individually, thanked them for coming and promised to do their best to retain leisure facilities in Belper.
Belper Leisure Centre is under threat of closure due to soaring energy costs, which are expected to rise from £112,000 per year to £480,000 later this year. The charitable trust that owns the centre cannot absorb these costs so has put the centre up for sale.
The problems cannot be solved by a simple council rescue package as the situation is very complex. Because Green councillors have been working hard since the election – talking with the leisure centre, the council’s senior officers and spending hours meeting the council’s community and leisure centre leads – they understand the complexities of the issues.
These include:
- New legislation which replaces European laws concerning large grants of public money, which needs interpreting correctly. The council has a duty to use public money responsibly so needs to ensure any rescue package is legal.
- Belper Leisure Centre being on the market for sale.
- Links between Belper Leisure Centre and Belper School. The centre provides exam halls and sports facilities for the school and is run by a trust that includes Derbyshire County Council. However, Belper School is in the process of becoming an academy so it is assumed that the Multi-Academy Trust would take on Derbyshire County Council's role in the trust.
- Sport England grants not being available until August. Sport England is awarding £65million2 to help leisure centres with energy costs and energy-saving measures; the council would have to apply for this on the leisure centre’s behalf.
Green Councillors told protesters they expected the council’s legal officer to tell councillors that there were legal reasons why they couldn’t vote for the award of £360,000 at that particular meeting.
Due to these complexities, Greens had prepared an amendment to the motion asking for the issue to be debated and decided at an urgent special meeting, with the public allowed to speak. They were planning to propose that this should be held at the leisure centre.
However, in the council meeting the Labour group did not permit a debate and adjourned the issue to a meeting at an undisclosed date.
Green leader, Alison McDermott, attempted to ask for agreement that this meeting would be arranged with urgency. She also wanted agreement that council officers would be instructed to start exploring ways to help and support the leisure centre.
Unfortunately, she was not allowed to speak and raise these issues. Because of these important omissions, the Green councillors voted against adjourning the debate.
Green Group leader Councillor Alison McDermott said: “The complexities of the issues – the energy cap being lifted in March, new post-Brexit legislation and Belper School being forced to academise – are all the result of the Conservative government’s political decisions. Unfortunately at last night’s meeting, this Labour council missed the opportunity to explain them to the residents of Amber Valley and reassure them that they’d look for solutions.”
