What went wrong? (From This Is Wiltshire)

What went wrong?

11:48am Thursday 30th November 2006 in

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Leisure centres in Calne, Cricklade and Wootton Bassett are to close but could the outcome have been different? Joanne Moore reports.

In February the Gazette exclusively reported that leisure centres in North Wiltshire were under threat because of a £500,000 deficit.

At the time North Wiltshire District Council leader Carol O'Gorman did her best to distance herself from the unpalatable idea of sports complexes closing down.

She said: "You can be assured that the executive will ensure the very best level of leisure service continues to be provided here in North Wiltshire."

Nine months later that very executive committee voted to close centres in Calne, Cricklade and Wootton Bassett.

Hardly any warning of Thursday night's meeting was given and there was no consultation beforehand. The writing was on the wall long before last February but no one wanted to heed the warning signs.

A mixture of underfunding, poor planning and terrible management has been blamed for the demise of North Wiltshire Leisure Ltd. The company was set up in June 2001 when leisure was hived off from the council to be run by a trust.

But it the new company was burdened from the beginning with a number of expensive trappings it did not need. It was top heavy with bosses all being paid top wack, rather than just using the expertise of council officers when needed.

Managers put an optimistic gloss on the future but, when a year after NWLL was formed, the district council cut its grant from £1 million a year to £800,000 things began to get tough.

Critics have argued this was the beginning of the end. In May 2002 the company's then managing director Adrian Jones went public with his fears when he was left footing a bill of £40,000 for lost revenue when Calne's leisure centre needed a new roof.

He said at the time: "We are urging the district council to discuss its business plan with us so we know what is round the corner."

But things went from bad to worse. A year ago three managers were suspended. Chief executive Mike Parlour died in December after finding out he had cancer just days after his suspension. In February commercial director Gary Milne and head of finance Bruce Ponting lost their jobs.

Neither side released details about why the men went but there were rumours about lack of planning and bad decisions over pricing. By the time Wycombe Leisure was appointed to run the ailing firm on a temporary contract at the end of last year it was obvious closures would follow.

In February the district council was forced to bail out NWLL to the tune of £250,000 just to pay its wage bill. That handout was funded from the council's reserves.

Former North Wiltshire Tory leader Toby Sturgis, who chairs the council's scrutiny committee, is keen to lay the blame clearly at the door of the Lib Dem administration.

But even allowing for party politics his insight into the subject is telling. He said: "The warning signs were there from the beginning but nobody was brave enough to heed them.

"For NWLL to succeed it had to make a profit that it could plough back into the centres but it never did. I don't think hardly any maintenance has been done on any of the centres. Work that has been done has not been done properly.

"The council was handing over a huge amount of money and should have kept much closer controls on what was happening. The auditor highlighted exactly these points in his report last month." But Mr Sturgis believes the reduction in cash was key. He said: "When the grant was reduced in the second year the new born baby had its bottle taken away."

Now it has starved to death.

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