Caerphilly County Borough Council’s decision to defer the closure of a Pontllanfraith Leisure Centre will see £136,000 taken from the budgets of roads and schools.
The council agreed that additional savings required to keep the centre open will be achieved by making cuts to its highway maintenance budget and by deleting vacant posts in language support in primary schools.
Resident Dean Jones has been campaigning to keep the leisure centre open, but hit back at the council’s decision to cut other services.
He said: “As a group we have urged the council to use the £120 million usable reserves they have.
“At no point did we imagine they would cut posts to speech and language therapy in primary schools, which again means they’re not protecting the most vulnerable in our society.”
The council’s cabinet originally decided to close the leisure centre in December last year, but the controversial closure was put on hold after Blackwood councillor Kevin Etheridge put forward a successful motion to ‘call-in’ the decision for further scrutiny.
Council leader Cllr Dave Poole said: “We have taken on board the feedback received from the community and we also need to consider how the plans for Pontllanfraith fit in with our broader aspirations for sport and leisure provision across the county borough in the future.
“It is important that the community understands that this decision does not come without consequences and we will now need to find alternative savings in order to meet the costs of keeping Pontllanfraith Leisure Centre open.
“Our budgets are shrinking and we need to look carefully at what services we are able to deliver in the future.
“One thing is clear – doing nothing is not an option – and we will have to make some difficult decisions in order to balance our budgets.”
The future of the leisure centre will be considered later in 2018 as part of a wider discussion around leisure service provision across the whole county borough.
Well what a shame.
I can think of a better way to save money is.
Cut the salary of the big wigs in Caerphilly council.
Why we are paying all this money for this chief executive at 150k per year.
Stop paying the expenses of the councillors for what thay are claiming.
Don’t understand the amount of money we pay the leaders of caerphilly cabinet.
What a waste of money
And don’t pay the 200k for this for the O’Sullivan mess. And the payoffs.
We could have saved 5 million if thay where all scaked.
Yes it come at a cost , the Authority is paying , approx £3 million out of the Reserve Fund to Demolish, The Council Offices, Pont-Grammer & Oakdale School, Then sell them off. Take another £ 1 million out of the reserve,To keep the Centre Open & the Roads & Schools Project ongoing
The way forward should be.
Submit and obtain Planning for all 3 sites. Which is the Proposal for the sites. This could Rise £ 600.000 + per Acre(farmer’s weekly 2015 prices), Excess of £ 20/26million,Plus the £3 million Demolishing costs, These are all Prime sites. That’s how you, get a proper return from the Rate payers Assets , I wish i studied harder in School, I could be earning £180k per ann,
Nice move Caerphilly Council – keep Pontllanfraith Leisure Centre open and then make cuts to Roads maintenance and speech and language therapy in schools ( what happened to your proud boasts of keeping services going ? ) and then blame those who campaigned to save the leisure centre for the consequences !
Could it be you are trying to alienate the electorate by making these cuts, so that when leisure facilities are reviewed later in 2018 there will be little opposition if you then choose to close this leisure centre ?( People may not vote to oppose closure if they think it will be at the expense of other services ).
It’s time Caerphilly Council was properly managed with well thought out departmental budgets and no more hype.
Had you dealt with the pay scandal promptly and efficiently you would have had plenty of funding ( not to mention the £120 million reserves that one post on this site referred to ).
Perfect.
Yes not nice,Trying Pit the Electorate against each other.
Your correct.
And caerphilly council have not run out of money as one person as said.