Leisure deal nearly done

PRIVATE management of Epping Forest Council's leisure centres and swimming pools is a step closer.

Councillors decided, by 28 votes to 20, to enter negotiations for a seven-year contract with Sports Leisure Management Ltd (SLM) as the preferred bidder to run the district's four main leisure facilities.

And they dismissed representations from Liberal Democrat and Loughton Residents Association colleagues to qualify the decision with various amendments.

Leisure portfolio holder Chris Whitbread said: "It's important we take this next step forward."

He said Sports Leisure Management's bid was the best on the table and given the exhaustive two-year investigations already carried out, it was unlikely a superior form of management would be found, while a valuable opportunity to improve services and save over £1m would be lost if negotiations were not stepped up.

Liberal Democrat leader Michael Heavens said: "What I'm concerned about is that the portfolio holder seems to assume negotiations will be successful."

He proposed an amendment be added that while negotiating with SLM, to safeguard against possible failure of negotiations and still achieve the cost savings required, Mr Whitbread carried out a re-examination of alternative management of leisure services facilities by an in-house charitable trust and report back to the council for further discussions.

However Conservative leader Di Collins said: "This is just delay after delay after delay. We've been over this. This is the best option for local people. We've been haemorrhaging money to leisure services for several years and we've found an alternative. Please let this move on."

The amendment was rejected.

Loughton Residents Association leader Ken Faulkner expressed concern that under the proposed deal with SLM the council could find itself suddenly responsible for a possible extra £150,000 in business rates, but his proposal that negotiations should only be entered into if SLM accepted full liability for those charges was defeated.

Council leader John Knapman said: "What we seem to forget in all of this is that it's only about negotiating these issues with SLM. You don't walk into negotiations with your hands tied."