Stockport council set to ask government to pay for leisure centre repairs

Stockport council is planning to ask the government to pay for repairs to its 'ageing' leisure centres.

Last month the town hall refused to rule out the closure of Grand Central leisure centre and swimming pool, which is located near the train station.A report by community interest company Life Leisure, which runs the site, found that the 30-year-old Grand Central building is in need of an 'eight figure' investment to upgrade its facilities.

Now the Lib Dems, who run Stockport council, have submitted a motion to call on the new Labour government to fund works at the borough's leisure centres. The issue will be debated at a full council meeting on Thursday night.

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The motion reads: "This council meeting resolves to call on the new government to provide funds to invest in our town centre swimming pools at Grand Central and in our ageing leisure estate across the borough."

Stockport Lib Dems are one councillor short of a majority in the council chamber, and will need the support of independent councillors or political parties to get the motion over the line. Stockport Labour leader David Meller, the biggest opposition party on the council, said there is 'now more serious doubt about the future of the site'.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We're working on an amendment at the moment, but that says to me that they are looking to shift the blame on Grand Central and that there's no plan for the building.

"The plan looks like it's going to be shut down. They are looking to a Labour government to bail them out. I still don't know how long they've known that funding was needed.

"They're just looking to shift the blame and that's the direction the council will go over the next few years, they're trying to not take any responsibility. They can't keep blaming everyone for something they should have done."

The Lib Dems have run Stockport council since the local elections in May 2022. Before that, the town hall was run under a Labour administration.

Lib Dem councillors blamed the former Conservative government for the state of the borough's leisure centres. Despite the claim, plans were submitted earlier this year for a new community and leisure hub in Marple, supported by a £20m grant from Levelling Up funding.

Mark Roberts, deputy leader of Stockport council, said: "Years of inadequate government funding, including during the six of the last eight years when Stockport had a Labour administration, have meant that insufficient funds have been available to maintain and invest in our whole leisure estate to the levels we would want.

"I am disappointed that Stockport’s Labour Group leader does not see increased central government funding of local government as a shared aim, and that his Group appears poised to reject our call that the new government provide Stockport with the funding we will need.

"Residents will be rightly angry if their local services continue to be starved of funding under a Labour government. The Liberal Democrats will continue to argue for what is best for our borough, regardless of which party holds the purse strings in Westminster."

Jilly Julian, Stockport council cabinet member with responsibilities including finance, said: "There certainly are no plans to close Grand Central.

"The Life Leisure Community Interest Company report and business plan came to the council’s Corporate, Resource Management and Governance Scrutiny Committee on January 16, 2024 and is based on all sites remaining open.

"The challenges of our ageing leisure facilities were discussed at that meeting and are well understood by all parties.

"This is why we applied to Sports England for £1.2m of funding, but we only received a fraction of this for decarbonisation work at one site. "We are constantly looking for and pursue other funding opportunities as they arise."

Stockport's two Conservative MPs both lost their seats in Parliament last week, when the Cheadle and Hazel Grove constituencies were won by Lib Dem councillors Tom Morrison and Lisa Smart who became MPs.

In the Stockport constituency, which includes Stockport town centre, Labour's Navendu Mishra was re-elected as MP with a 15,000-vote majority over Reform UK who finished in second place.