Report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods)

This report provides an update on the Leisure Capital Programme which is seeking to sustain, develop and enhance the facility asset base over the next 20 years.The Leisure Capital Programme is currently funded through a mixture external grants and contributions, capital receipts, borrowing and spend to save capital investment. The report sets out the current pipeline programme and proposals of investment. The programme follows the Council’s Capital Finance process and is subject to individual business cases and a clear funding strategy to inform the strategic consideration and feasibility of each scheme.

It should be noted that a separate report on the Playing Pitch Strategy will be provided for a future meeting of the Committee. 

The Committee received a report of the Strategic Director (Neighbourhoods) which provided an update on the Leisure Capital Programme which was seeking to sustain, develop and enhance the facility asset base over the next 20 years. The Leisure Capital Programme was currently funded through a mixture of external grants and contributions, capital receipts, borrowing and spend to save capital investment. The report set out the current pipeline programme and proposals of investment. The programme followed the Council’s Capital Finance process and was subject to individual business cases and a clear funding strategy to inform the strategic consideration and feasibility of each scheme.

Officers referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:

• Background information;
• Capital Investment Strategy;

·         Proposed Capital Programme and Pipeline; and

·         Capital Strategy Governance.

Some of the key points that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• Request for assurance that Ward Councillors would be involved in decisions about how any funding arising from Section 106 agreements between the Council and developers would be spent;
• Sufficiency of leisure provision;
• How it would be ensured that the planned synthetic cricket wickets would be maintained and used;
• What the start date and completion dates were for the capital projects; and
• That a lot of the proposed projects in table 3 of the report were dependent on obtaining external funding and what was being done to support the applications for this funding.

The Head of Parks, Leisure, Youth and Events advised that his service had recognised the need for increased engagement with Ward Councillors.  He reported that officers had engaged with Ward Councillors in relation to the Playing Pitch Strategy to enable them to shape the ward plans and ensure that officers understood their priorities if Section 106 funding became available.  He informed Members that leisure provision was currently sufficient to meet demand but that, as the city’s population grew, it was anticipated that there would gaps in some parts of the city which would need to be addressed, including around Hough End and in the city centre.  He reported that 100 synthetic cricket wickets were being installed in parks across Greater Manchester, funded by the English Cricket Board, that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was providing additional funding for cricket programmes and coaching to ensure that they were fully used and that the Council had committed to maintaining them properly.

The Head of Parks, Leisure, Youth and Events informed Members that, where the start date and completion date for the capital projects were known they had been included in the appendix.  He proposed to continue to update this as further information became known and make the information available to Members.  He advised Members that, while many of the proposed projects in table 3 were reliant on external funding, a lot of this was funding from Sport England which had already been ring-fenced for Manchester so there was a higher degree of certainty that those projects would go ahead.  In response to a Member’s question, he agreed to update the table to provide clarity on the degree of certainty that funding would be obtained, particularly where this related to ring-fenced funding; however, he advised that projects had only been included in the table if there was a very strong chance of success and that many other projects which were currently being discussed but were less certain had not been included.

The Executive Member for Skills, Culture and Leisure informed Members that MCRactive had a small, dedicated team which worked with community groups to build their capacity and increase the likelihood of them successfully bidding for funding.

Decisions

1.            To note the Capital Strategy for Leisure Facilities and the update on the various projects.

2.            To note that a separate report detailing the Playing Pitch Strategy will be provided for a future meeting of the Committee.