As energy bills soar and footfall at leisure centres drops, the Isle of Wight Council is facing a more than £1 million hole in its budget – as leisure centres continue to feel the post-COVID-19 effects.
At the end of June, the council was estimating a £1,135,00 deficit in its leisure centres budget if things continued in the way they were until March 2023.
Councillor Chris Jarman, cabinet member for strategic finances and corporate resources, told the council’s corporate scrutiny committee earlier this month the cost pressures, however, have since accelerated.
The council was unable to provide the more recent figures with those for the month ending August 2022 being worked on. To deal with the increasing financial pressures, the authority has brought forward savings and used the part of the £14.2 million COVID-19 contingency fund it set aside to fill the gaps in finances caused by the pandemic.
However, Cllr Jarman said those were only short-term fixes and they could not continue to fund it like they were. He said the council needed to find either a more strategic way of funding them, seek money from the government or restructure.
This time last year, the council was predicting nearly £1.3 million would be lost due to the impact of COVID-19 on its leisure centres but that was able to be stopped. According to the draft accounts for the council’s last financial year, the authority was able to bank £284,000 instead, due to savings made in staffing costs and support provided for COVID-19 -related income losses.
Council figures show the number of One Cards, giving unlimited access to its sports and leisure facilities, had steadily increased in recent months following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions but was still not at the same level as before the pandemic. Compared to June 2019, June 2022 had 2,307 fewer memberships, but still had 4 times as many users than those in June 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions were in place.
A council spokesperson said the financial pressures show the pace of recovery from the pandemic is slower than anticipated. Increased utility costs are also impacting the budget, with contracts starting in 2022/23 seeing a 350% increase in electricity costs and 500% in gas over a year.
Leisure centres have recently undergone work to reduce carbon emissions and utility consumption and have seen solar panels installed. LED lighting, air-source heat pumps, a new building management system and high-efficiency circulation pumps have been installed.
They said it is too early to work out how much money has been saved. The performance of the centres — at Medina in Newport, Westridge and The Heights in Sandown — is being constantly reviewed.
Steps are being taken to minimise expenditure and maximise usage and income, through One Card promotions.
Watch out here comes the one of many excuses to raise our council tax!!!!!!!
Next one we need to charge are electric cars !!!!!!
And pay for the air con …..
We you’re poor cash cow’s are having problems ourselves, how about all the money you use for the pension pot from our tax, you use to plug the gaps ??????
You really need to open your eyes….
Well, if Bandwagon Bob (AKA Soundbite Seely) delivered on his “Island Deal” we wouldn’t be so badly off.
Not forgetting, of course, that he voted for the massive cuts to the cash we (the Island) gets from Central Government in the first place.
We’re all in this together.
Couldn’t agree more,40% of your council tax goes towards their pension.
If it’s 1 Mil, can’t the Council get back the 1 Mil they invested in Perpetus Tidal Energy?
PTEC don’t seem to be doing much with our money, which was supposed to generate (oh) a good return for us.
If the IW Council made the tickets to these venues much, much cheaper then more people would be able to use them. It costs the same amount to heat a swimming pool and the building for 10 people using it as if 50 people were. The same with theatres and gyms – it costs the same amount of money to heat and light the building empty of people so makes sense to fill it by reducing the costs of tickets. In fact more people in a building generate heat.
Time to cut costs within the council. Rather than rip off people, with unreasonable council tax rises.
Excuse me, but why are these places not run as commercial organisations? Why should the CT payer have to fund them? If you want to use it then it is YOU that should be paying for it.
Users DO pay to use the Leisure Centres either as a monthly fee or on the day to use a court, attend a class or go swimming etc. Part of the problem, as with anything to do with the Council, is inefficiency and wastefulness. The monthly fee is actually more than some commercial gyms etc charge but there’s more on offer at the leisure centres, possibly too much, and not everything gets used to anywhere near its maximum.
You are excused.
If leisure centres are failing to be self funding then raise their prices, why should people who do not use the facilities be forced to pay for them through increased council tax.
I’d hazard a guess that there’s a long, long list of things that we’re all paying for through our council tax that many of us don’t use and a lot of them don’t run at a profit. Take a look at the ‘Council Services’ page on their website and see how many of the hundreds of things listed you actually use yourself.
It’s been a long time since I used a school.
i got no kids am still paying for schools
Unfortunately the leisure Centres made it very difficult to use due to them closing the changing rooms around Covid. Other Gyms didn’t, so we many of us moved to the new Gyms which were more modern and cheaper.
If it wasn’t so expensive to keep fit and they fetched the prices down more may use the facilities on offer. It costs the same to heat and staff a place if 3 people or 30 + use the facilities. The council needs to be more PRO ACTIVE in this time of deep recession and stop moaning about the cost of things but do something positive for a change. I was always told Look out of the Box and they need to do the same even if it is on a trial basis they may even surprise themselves – as long as they can stop arguing when having meetings.
Still keep spending money on the Heights though ,always boasting of new updates there that are not really needed.
But isn’t that why the Council got £14m to fill the gap of lost revenue?