Swimming pools at Dewsbury Sports Centre and Spen Valley Leisure Centre at risk of closure as Kirklees Active Leisure faces essential maintenance costs totalling millions of pounds

A presentation was given by KAL’s chief executive, Alasdair Brown, and Kirklees Council’s service director for culture and visitor economy, Adele Poppleton, at Tuesday’s (August 1) meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny management committee.

The presentation set out KAL’s current position and the leisure centre review that is currently taking place. This will ultimately determine which of KAL’s centres will remain open in the coming years and the way they will be operated, with unions and members of the public previously urging the council to take the leisure service back in-house.

Currently, KAL and Kirklees Council work in partnership, with KAL being an independent charitable organisation. KAL is responsible for running the leisure centres, while Kirklees Council owns the buildings and is responsible for their repairs and maintenance.

During the meeting, it emerged that every single KAL swimming pool is currently at risk of being closed. The council was also said to have agreed that KAL can “explore” pulling out of the stadium facility.

According to its website, KAL currently runs 10 sites across the district with seven of these having swimming pools. These are:

Colne Valley Leisure Centre.

Dewsbury Sports Centre.

Holmfirth Pool and Fitness Centre.

Huddersfield Leisure Centre.

Scissett Baths and Fitness Centre.

Spen Valley Leisure Centre.

Stadium Health and Fitness Club.

Ms Poppleton, who is responsible for managing the council’s relationship with KAL, told the meeting this news and explained that £0.5m of funding is being sought from Sport England’s Swimming Pool Support Fund. She also outlined the “stringent criteria” that must be met when applying for the funding.

She said: “At this moment in time, until KAL come back to us with what they feel they can deliver and remain solvent, all of the pools are at risk.

"But once we’ve discussed that offer, it may move to a position where we’re able to say there are pools no longer at risk.

“In order to apply for the Sports England funding, the pools have to be at risk of closure and the local authority has to make a commitment that if funded, we will ensure that those pools remain open for three years.”

Earlier in the meeting, Ms Poppleton highlighted the amount of money needing to be spent on essential works at eight of KAL’s centres.

Three of the centres – Scissett Baths and Fitness Centre, Batley Sports and Tennis Centre and Dewsbury Sports Centre – were said to require more than £1m of investment.

She said: “This [investment] isn’t to make all singing and dancing centres, this is just to keep them running and open at the moment.”

In the case of Dewsbury, more than £2.5m is needed, with Ms Poppleton telling the committee that she had been informed that around £15m is needed to get the centre “up to the standards that are now expected”.

She explained that options like mothballing centres in the hope of re-opening them in the future and closing centres completely are being explored but that it ultimately comes down to what is affordable within KAL’s budget envelope for next year.

In its budget for the current financial year, the council set aside £6.1m for KAL. However, this is set to decrease significantly over the coming years, with a maximum of £2.55m earmarked for KAL for 2023/24.

The £6.1m in this year’s budget was reportedly £1m short of the amount KAL had requested from the council. This was said to have led to the closure of Batley Baths and Recreation Centre and Deighton Sports Arena and was given as the reason the council had agreed that KAL can explore leaving the stadium site.

Last December, KAL announced that Batley Baths, Deighton Sports Arena and Colne Valley’s swimming pool would be “temporarily” closed. The pool has since re-opened at the Colne Valley site, as has Deighton’s centre which is currently operating at limited capacity and will do so until November.

The same cannot be said for Batley Baths, which continues to be closed.

The closures were attributed to financial pressures experienced since the Covid-19 pandemic and increasing energy costs which have quadrupled from around £1m to £4m, especially due to the heating of swimming pools.

However, another significant cost for KAL was identified at the meeting.

Mr Brown explained that the 45 per cent increase to the National Living Wage between the years 2015 and 2023 that impacted 53 per cent of KAL’s workforce had been tough for the organisation.

He said of KAL’s employees: “It’s quite right that they are paid a reasonable wage but it is very difficult for a not-for-profit charity like KAL.”

Despite the difficult decisions the organisation is facing, Mr Brown was keen to highlight the successes of KAL, with staff satisfaction reportedly at an all-time high.

Despite a decline on previous years, this year’s customer satisfaction levels of 75.1 per cent were regarded to be “fairly high” considering the “challenges and turbulence” for KAL over the past year.

On top of this, Mr Brown said he was “very proud” that Huddersfield’s Splash Park had “helped put Kirklees on the map,” with 58 per cent of customers visiting the site from outside of Kirklees.

The decisions on which centres will close and how Kirklees’ leisure centres will operate in the future are yet to be made.

KAL has been given a deadline of August 29 to present what it thinks it can deliver next year within its £2.55m budget.

From here, the proposals will be heard by the cabinet, with the preferred option sent to public consultation.