Petition launched in Shropshire to avoid wasting in danger leisure centre

A runner has launched a petition to avoid wasting her city’s leisure centre from closure.

Teme Leisure, which has run the centre in Cleobury Mortimer since 2008, is handing the contract again to Shropshire Council after the native authority withdrew an annual grant of £23,500 in March.

Sian Powell stated the venue was utilized by 26 completely different sporting teams and virtually 200 members, and stated it was “not tenable” for a lot of customers of the centre to journey elsewhere.

Council chief Heather Kidd stated the funding lower was disappointing, but essential if it was to keep away from operating out of cash this monetary 12 months.

The leisure centre off Love Lane will shut on 3 December if another association to maintain it open just isn’t discovered inside the subsequent few months.

The closest public health club would then be Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire, which is eight miles (12km) away.

“We live in the countryside and there’s very limited public transport,” stated Ms Powell, a run chief for the Cleobury Mortimer Running Club.

“We’ve got a big teenage population who use the facilities and they can’t drive and there’s no bus service to Tenbury.

“You’re half-hour every solution to [leisure centres in] Kidderminster and Ludlow. That’s an hour earlier than you’ve got even carried out any train.

“For a lot of people that’s not tenable in terms of the time they’ve got, including parents who need childcare to cover them going to the gym, for example.”

Teme Leisure, a not-for-profit organisation which additionally runs the leisure centre in Ludlow, stated the Cleobury Mortimer web site had at all times required exterior funding.

But in shedding the council grant from 1 April would end in an estimated deficit this monetary 12 months of about £44,000 if it stayed open.

Ms Powell’s petition to avoid wasting the leisure centre has been signed by greater than 1,000 individuals, which implies it can obtain a debate at a future assembly of all councillors.

The Liberal Democrat chief of Shropshire Council stated the native authority was looking for methods to liberate cash to maintain the centre open.

“We haven’t given up on it, we’re looking at other ways, but we can’t do a deal at the moment with Teme Leisure,” she stated.

“I know that members of my cabinet are going to be talking to Cleobury Town Council to see if we can find a way through to keep it open for them.”

Another doable possibility is {that a} completely different leisure supplier takes over the operating of the centre.

South Shropshire’s Conservative MP Stuart Anderson described the centre as “a vital facility for the community” and urged Shropshire Council to work with native residents to safe its future.