Liverpool City Council has agreed to move ahead with its plan to hand over control of two city leisure centres as the local authority continues to face financial challenges.
At a cabinet meeting at Liverpool Town Hall last night, the council rubber stamped its plan to transfer the ownership of its Lifestyles venues in Everton Park and Park Road in order to try and keep them afloat.
The local authority says the two sites are "not financially viable" due to declining footfall and rising costs. The aim is to hand over control of the two centres to third parties, in a move known as a community asset transfer.
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The report at the cabinet meeting explained how the city's leisure centres are around a decade behind other core cities in terms of their evolution, with the last capital investment undertaken in 2008.
The Lifestyles service is a non-statutory service, which operates eight indoor facilities across the city. According to the cabinet documents, an overspend of £3.4m has been recorded “due to the failure to deliver targets.”
A further saving of more than £900,000 is required to meet the council’s budget responsibilities as agreed earlier this year. The report said: “The council’s resources are finite and savings not made by Lifestyles services will have to be met from other council services.”
Both sites in Everton and Toxteth are described as “high cost/low performing venues and are not financially viable.” Assessment of all eight locations operated by Liverpool Council were said to be 10 years behind other major UK cities as a result of “underinvestment in the leisure estate.”
The proposed community asset transfers would include assessing retaining community access to facilities, but the report sets out how alternative options both private and public are within two miles of both locations. Additionally, Notre Dame school uses Everton Park for the provision of the school’s sports curriculum.
As part of any transfer, Liverpool Council will have to satisfy government the school would still have adequate access to sports accommodation.
The council says that footfall at Everton Park is 20% down on pre-Covid levels, and Park Road has fallen by 10%. This is despite work to boost the centres’ profile and increase visitors, including half-price membership schemes, the number of direct debit users has dropped across both sites.
Council Tax payers are increasingly having to subsidise the centres – the average cost per visit to Everton Park is £15.85, and for Park Road it is £19.85 – compared to an average of £8.20 per visit for all Lifestyles facilities across the city.
Under the Council’s Community Asset Transfer Policy, any third party interest received would trigger a six-week consultation exercise which would fully explore any impact and opportunities that a change of ownership would bring. The council would then ask that any interested parties retain community access to the facilities where possible, and at Park Road this would include access to the gymnastics facilities.
Following this process, a full report will be presented to the cabinet in 2024 which will include recommendations for the next steps.
If the transfers go ahead, staff would be relocated to one of the remaining Lifestyles fitness centres, including the newly refurbished Peter Lloyd Lifestyles, which will reopen next year following £2.2million of investment.
The cabinet meeting also agreed plans from the council to hand over its operation of the Liverpool Cruise Terminal. Despite what the council describes as a “healthy income” generated from the terminal, “increasingly high uncontrollable costs” mean it will now seek to hand over control to a third party.
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