Council to Take Over Running North Yorkshire Leisure Centres

North Yorkshire Council is to overhaul the way leisure centres are run across the county by bringing them in-house and delivering some services in Village Halls.

The changes will be phased in over the next four years.

Executive member for leisure, Councillor Simon Myers, says merging the services previously run by the district and borough councils makes sense.

It follows a review of how the authority delivers leisure services after local government reorganisation, which abolished the seven district councils that previously owned council leisure centres until last April.

North Yorkshire Council said it wanted to see a greater focus on health and wellbeing and ensure a broader range of people can access leisure centres.

Digital technology will also be used to bring leisure classes to village halls in North Yorkshire.

Councillor Simon Myers - says as part of the changes staff will be able to deliver remote classes to local communities.

North Yorkshire Council inherited one of the largest leisure portfolios in the country and now owns more than 20 leisure facilities including the Harrogate Leisure and Wellness Centre (formerly the Hydro), Craven Leisure in Skipton and Scarborough Sports Village in Scarborough.

However, the former district councils ran their leisure centres differently, with outsourced private companies, in-house teams and a trust all used.

The council said the in-house model would “provide clarity and consistency for customers, a clear link with democratic decision making and strategic control for the council.”

It will be phased in over the next four years as current contracts come to an end.

The union Unison, which represents council staff, said it was supportive of the changes.

Cllr David Chance, executive member for corporate services, said he was pleased the council did not opt to outsource the running of leisure centres following the review.

He said:

“All outsourcing does is encourage very good local government officers to move to the private sector to manage services they were managing in the first place.

“The thrust of being a health and wellbeing service is right and proper. It will allow this council to move forward without any cuts to those services unlike some councils around the country.”

Leisure centres will be transformed into active well-being hubs operating alongside more locally based services and activities and there will be increased support for community-based sport.

Members of North Yorkshire Council’s executive gave the go-ahead yesterday for the introduction of a new delivery model, which triggers the start of the next phase of the authority’s strategic leisure review.

Councillors were told that work so far has included input from local communities and sports groups, as well as stakeholders like Sport England and North Yorkshire Sport. A cross-party working group of councillors has also visited sites across the county to help shape the proposals.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for culture, leisure and housing, Cllr Simon Myers, said:

“With one of the largest leisure portfolios in the country we now have the opportunity to transform the way we deliver those services and put us at the forefront of a national movement towards improving physical and mental health and well-being.

“We will be creating a service bespoke to North Yorkshire with locally-based services and targeted provision, with particular emphasis on the needs of groups that may face barriers to participation. The UK population is 20 per cent less active than it was in the 1960s and we want to reverse that be providing the high quality, accessible and inclusive services people want, where they want them.

“We also want to work in greater partnership with the NHS and social care providers as we recognise the benefits of physical activity in preventing and managing long term health conditions.

“This is a very exciting time for leisure in North Yorkshire – local government reorganisation has given us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to look at our expansive portfolio and consolidate the services by building on best practice to create a new sport and active well-being service.”

Currently the council’s leisure portfolio - which includes 19 leisure centres, 16 swimming pools, three well-being hubs, a nursery and Harrogate’s Turkish Baths are run by five different operators. Those arrangements will be moved to the single in-house model in a phased way – with the aim of the service being fully integrated and transformed by 2028. The first change will be for services in the former Selby district where the contract with IHL comes to an end this year.

The next phase of work is to create a leisure investment strategy, progressing work already undertaken during recent asset condition surveys at the leisure centres. This will look at the condition of each site, their future roles and sustainability as part of the new delivery model and identify sites where investment is needed.