Agenda item

The Council welcomes public participation at its meetings.

 

The public open forum will commence at 1.00 p.m. and the following formal business of the Council will commence at 1.30 p.m. or whenever the public open forum ends, if earlier.

 

Any member of the public requesting to speak should register with democracy@southkesteven.gov.uk and provide three days’ notice of the question or statement they wish to make.

 

Up to six people can register speak during this item, with each person being permitted to speak for up to five minutes.

Prior to the commencement of the formal business of the meeting, the Chairman of the Council invited Full Council to observe a minute’s silence to remember former Councillor Philip Keddell.

 

The Chairman also gave thanks to Jan Hansen, Rosemary Kaberry-Brown and Jacky Smith, who had resigned from the Council since the previous meeting held on 22 September 2022.

 

Councillors Kelham Cooke, Ian Selby and Ian Stokes paid tribute to former Councillors Jacky Smith and Rosemary Kaberry-Brown.

 

The Council then heard questions from members of the public:

 

Question 1

 

From: Martin Reilly

 

To: Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Leisure

 

In 2017, the then Council Leader committed the Council to building two brand new leisure centres, in the Deepings and in Stamford. This promise was validated by a cabinet motion in March 2019 and released to much trumpeting and fanfare including on many election leaflets during the District Council elections of 2019. 

 

Since then, a continued lack of maintenance resulted in closure of the existing Deepings Leisure centre for reasons of health and safety, leaving the residents in the Deepings, and surrounding area, no local access to leisure facilities forcing them to travel to neighbouring towns and even to centres in other districts.

 

In the last few years Bromsgrove, East Suffolk and many other councils have delivered similar sized, similar budgeted leisure centres for their communities yet South Kesteven has done nothing. 

 

With the next election just 6 months away this backwards progress is a poor legacy for the current administration, which I hope the voting public will recognise.

 

It now transpires that money isn't the issue as the council has invested more than enough money to cover the cost of a leisure centre with a brutal state in the middle east where countless people have died building infrastructure projects and minorities continue to be persecuted. In any case, surely the Cabinet should have already allocated and secured funding before the announcement of the new build?

 

Will the Cabinet Member please explain to the residents of the Deepings and surrounding why it didn’t progress with the announced plans in a timely manner, commit to getting this money back and spending it in the district on its own desperately needed leisure infrastructure, and urgently undertake a tender process to get a sensible cost of re-opening the Deepings Leisure Centre?

 

The Cabinet Member highlighted that all investments placed were in accordance with the criteria set out by legislation and the Council’s Treasury Management Strategy which was approved annually by the Governance and Audit Committee.

 

The investments related to cash balances the Council held in its capacity as the billing authority rather than specific reserves that it controlled; the Council collected on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council, its Town and Parish Councils and the Police and Crime Commissioner. Information on the level of reserves was in the public domain and was most recently debated at the Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 22 November 2022. The level of reserves could be accessed via the Council’s democracy page on the website.

 

Question 2

 

From: Ian Davies

 

To: Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Leisure

 

SKDC have been providing leisure facilities in The Deepings for many decades, with an election pledge to provide a brand-new leisure centre. Whilst that has not come to fruition, SKDC’s commitment to provision of the services via the refurbishment has been solid until the public announcement on 16 November 2022.

 

The Leisure Centre was first mooted in 2015; improved facilities had been committed for seven years and now a decision on whether to renounce on this commitment and permanently close the leisure centre is being taken within seven days of the announcement of this proposal.

 

With a similar layout to Deepings Leisure Centre, in May 2022 Easton Leisure Centre in Bristol installed a new renewable heating system for £89,000 – this capital investment has led to their pool heating bill being eliminated and the investment paying back many times during the centre’s continuing lifespan. This sustainable solution should be contrasted with the Deepings Leisure Centre proposal to renew the oil boiler with continuously fluctuating and ever rising utility prices. Following the Easton example, one would be extremely environmentally friendly eliminating over 20% of SKDC’s leisure centre CO2 emissions.

 

Given the extensive expanses of water within our region, it is extremely important that school children learned how to swim. The closure of the leisure centre has already led to primary school children having to travel many extra miles with the inevitable expense for swimming lessons. Equally important to the expense is the additional time this travel is taking reducing their capacity to be in a classroom catching up on their education as a result of Covid.

 

The permanent closure of the Deepings Leisure Centre would disproportionately affect the young and the disadvantaged who have to rely on public transport. At weekends, when the facilities have their highest availability, rather than a short walk, they will have to take one or two buses to Bourne, or a bus to Peterborough, a train to Stamford with an extensive walk to Stamford Leisure Centre. As well as the additional expense this process totally flies in the face of sustainability.

 

Residents of The Deepings have paid their council tax in good faith based upon the provision of this service. There is a group of residents considering a class action lawsuit to recover their hard earned money for the lack of provision since 29 July 2021, the date of closure of the Deepings Leisure Centre.

 

In an effort to avert additional time and expense by SKDC, can I enquire how the council intends to reimburse this amount to the residents for failure to provide this service?

 

The Cabinet Member outlined that South Kesteven District Council collected Council Tax for a specific number of precepting authorities including the County Council, Parish and Town Councils and the Police.

 

Approximately 9% of all Council tax income received and retained by South Kesteven District Council was to fund a range of services. These fell into two areas - statutory services including waste collection, licensing, planning and environmental services, and discretionary services which are services the Council could choose to provide.

 

The provision of leisure was unfortunately a discretionary service, although as a Council the vital role leisure facilities played in keeping the Council’s residents healthy and active was recognised.

 

For clarification Council tax was income to fund services to all residents across the District and not individually charged on locality.

 

Question 3

 

From: Mr Gene Plews

 

To: Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Leisure

 

The county is experiencing a cost of living crisis; how much taxpayers’ money has South Kesteven council provided in support of the Stamford diversity group during the last 5 years?

 

The Cabinet Member confirmed that the Council sold tickets for the group as an agent, and then paid to them the sum of £247.28 in September 2022. Payments were made to the Stamford Anti-Racism Group via the Ward member Grants’ Scheme.

 

Question 4

 

From: Ian Stygall

 

To: Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance and Leisure

 

If £10.8m is not affordable in the current financial climate, then what in your opinion is affordable? As we the Deeping community were never asking for an all new gym in the first place. What we did require was somewhere to exercise locally without having to travel 15-20 miles to do so.

 

And as you were due to start the refurbishment works in January 2022 then you surely should have already had a financial structure in place at the lower borrowing rates from the time of planning your programme of works.

 

How much is now affordable?

 

Furthermore, according to one of my local Councillors, Councillor Judy Stevens who posted this statement on one of our local Deepings social media pages some months ago:

 

‘I am happy to have secured £6.5million for the refurbishment of the Deepings Leisure Centre.’

 

We as a community are asking you this: if the money was secured for the refurbishment, where is it now? You promised us a new leisure centre; then you promised us a refurbished leisure centre, and now nothing.

 

Our community will not be let down or lied to any more. If you do not deliver on your promises, you will not only be letting down an entire generation of children to sporting opportunities, you will be letting down an entire community with your spurious promises. Our community deserves so much better than what you give us. Surely teaching your children an essential life skill such as swimming should be top of your priorities, as it can and will save lives. This is about poor decision making from the outset, something you appear to be very good at Kelham. Despite your claims of wanting to represent and improve our area you are doing the complete opposite. Maybe it is time you stepped down as Council Leader and let someone who is passionate about taking our community and driving through positive changes. The Deeping community deserves so much better. Please save our leisure centre.

 

The Cabinet member responded that the refurbishment of Deepings Leisure Centre was always predicated on borrowing, and this fact was never hidden.  At the time the scheme of refurbishment was approved the Council stated it would need to undertake a review of its spending priorities to ensure the cost of borrowing was affordable.

 

Work had been ongoing to identify sufficient headroom in the budgets to cover the cost of borrowing to refurbish Deepings Leisure Centre. However, the Council’s financial outlook had significantly worsened due to external influences including the rising cost of energy including electricity and fuel – there was a paper on this subject on the agenda for today’s meeting. 

 

At the time the final scheme was approved in April 2022 interest rates were below 2%, however rates had subsequently risen significantly making the scheme unaffordable and placing significant pressure on the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan. 

 

Question 5

 

From: Sam Peeroo of Deepings Swimming Club

 

To: Cabinet Member for People and Safer Communities

 

Physical inactivity costs the NHS in the UK around £1 billion per year.  The SKDC population is growing quicker than the average for England, and the Local Plan is proposing up to 753 new homes in the Deepings.

 

Without Deepings Leisure Centre the people in the area have access to two swimming pools which have in total 6 swimming lanes.  (Grantham Meres has eight lanes but is a 50-minute drive from Deeping).

 

Deepings Leisure Centre has been a central part of the community for over 45 years.  It is more than bricks and mortar.   Deepings Swimming Club’s presences has helped the local economy and community over the years with swimmers becoming swimming teachers, lifeguards, centre managers and trainers.  Our swimmers’ parents have enabled local small businesses to thrive such as the pool cafe, sports centres, local sports clothing suppliers and trophy providers. We’ve given thousands of children somewhere to go on an evening where they can stay fit and swim off daily stresses with like-minded friends. 

 

Swimming is an essential life skill, necessary for health and wellbeing being recommended by doctors to keep people active.  LCC are expecting to spend £200m on Adult Social Care and £80m on children's social care in 22/23. Inactivity in the elderly population is a key cause of frailty, which has a serious impact on social care and hospital admissions. Obesity is a massive driver for Social Care issues, including T2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

 

Can the Cabinet Member for People and Safer Communities explain how voting in favour of this short-sighted decision protects the health and wellbeing of SKDC’s constituents and what the cost implications will be to health and education services?

 

The Cabinet Member did not underestimate the impact a permanent closure of Deepings Leisure Centre would have on the local community; indeed, the cost of inactivity to the NHS was well documented, as were the physical and mental implications of inactivity. 

 

The Council had previously approved plans to refurbish the existing leisure centre, this decision being made on the basis that the Council could make adjustments to its spending priorities to cover the cost of borrowing to finance the works.  Due to the Council’s wider financial pressures, which had been exacerbated by the worst cost of living crisis for over 40 years, the refurbishment was now an unaffordable proposition.  Increases in utilities, fuel and staff costs had all had a detrimental impact on the Council’s budgets without the added pressure of the increased cost of borrowing to finance the refurbishment.

 

The Council had recently been working with the other six Districts in Lincolnshire to develop a joint Districts’ Health and Wellbeing Strategy. This was currently in draft form but would be considered at a meeting of Rural and Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee in December and at Cabinet in January.  Once adopted this strategy would provide a framework for all district councils to work more closely with a full spectrum of health colleagues to improve the health and wellbeing of residents across the county.

 

In December 2021 the Council had adopted a Sport and Physical Activity Strategy which documented a proactive and collaborative approach to encouraging residents to be active, either through formal or informal activity.

 

The District Council had no control over the County Council or NHS’s budgets and how these could be better distributed, nor did it have any means of calculating what the impact of the closure of Deepings Leisure Centre would have on County Council or NHS budgets. There was a commitment to continuing to work with other organisations to promote the benefits of investing in preventative measures rather than treating ill-health but, this would take a major shift in how all organisations think and were funded.

 

Question 6

 

From: Paul Swift

 

To: Councillor Matthew Lee

Shortly after you became Leader of South Kesteven Council back in 2017 you hosted two ‘economic summits’ at which you declared your ambitions for the District. These included a promise of two brand new leisure centres in Stamford and the Deepings. Indeed, you stood in front of banners which stated “Exciting New Leisure Centre planned for the Deepings – Delivered by South Kesteven District Council”.

Did you ever really believe this was a realistic possibility and, if so, what is your personal opinion of why it never happened?”

 

Councillor Matthew Lee was not in attendance during the Public Open Forum. Following a point of order on whether the Chairman would use discretion under 11.4 of the Council Procedure Rules in Part 4 of the Constitution to direct the question to another Councillor, it was suggested that the questioner would receive a written response to their question, as per 11.10 of the Council Procedure Rules in Part 4 of the Constitution.

 

Note:  Councillor Lee Steptoe informed members that due to Full Council clashing with a housing meeting in his Ward, he would unfortunately have to leave Full Council after the close of the Public Open Forum item.