The cost of running the Isle of Wight’s leisure centres has dramatically increased since the pandemic with new figures showing that the utility bills alone now come in at over £700,000 a year. The Isle of Wight Council has been undertaking a review of its local authority-run leisure centres at Medina, Heights and Westridge, reporting back to the Corporate Scrutiny Committee on its findings. Shockingly, it has been revealed that the cost of utilities across the 3 sites has increased by 4.5x – from £155,000 per annum pre-COVID to a whopping £711,000 per annum now. It’s said that the cost of gas has increased by around 500% and 300% for electricity – both of which have had a considerable impact on leisure. Some of the pressure on the Council has been relieved, temporarily, thanks to a Sports England grant of £500,000. Despite this, leisure facilities are still predicted to run at a whopping £298,000 deficit in 2024/25. There is some positive news though…income continues to rise and the level of utilities continues to reduce, although the main pressure continues to be the utility costs. It’s said that the number of people using the leisure facilities has bounced back with income and membership levels now exceeding pre-COVID times. There are around 7,500 One Card members and around 750,000 visits were made in the 12 months up to March 2024. The Corporate Scrutiny Committee are set to continue to monitor and support the recovery of the leisure facilities to ensure they are once again in a revenue surplus.
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Time to put up council tax then
What would help is if all these parents on universal credit had to pay as us working people do.
So now if you are poor and burden society with another mouth to feed, not only do you pay no or minuscule amounts of rent and council tax, but get free gym membership which we also then have to subsidise.
Add the hundreds a week in benefit, free food extra for energy, school meals and uniforms, transport to school and YOU may see why we are short on working people now. Labour will make it all worse.
You’ve not been paying attention to the purposeful and constructive Labour govt that’s been voted in via a landslide then, have you.
Yeah let’s completely get rid of the family altogether and have single working people everywhere. Society will last forever.
Is that the two options – families on benefits breeding more families on benefits, paid for by working people and now, retired folk as well, or single people with no children?
What a dumb thing to say.
Society would be so much better off if it was full of judgmental bigots like us. We could do away with the so called ‘nice’ majority who don’t hold the right views and we would not share anything with anyone.
Well said, the freeloaders/spongers do NOT need free Gym membership.They seem to have plenty of money for coffee mornings/nails/hair do’s/lip fillers/ tattoos/ smokes/vapes/nice car etc. ( sorry if you are in genuine hardship) The Gym is not a life essential like food. Council could save a bomb here…
Not a proble just increase membership prices.
The minimum wage went up recently so members
can afford to pay a big more.
No shortage of money when going to the pub
watching the footie
Lol
Or drinking,smoking and having tattoos.Why does nobody ever check up on this?
That is very true.
I have never seen a place where so many people have tattoos,
Smoke, Vape and drink, and that’s only the women.
Lol
Because we’re not a fascist country, maybe.
The gyms are probably already the most expensive on the Island. Up to twice the price of some commercially run gyms.
Not sure about the swimming pools as it’s hard to compare like for like.
But, too many people getting free or discounted entry probably doesn’t help.
Any business running at a loss should be closed down.
I bet they employ unnesseccary amounts of staff.
All they need is a Lifeguard and a First Aider, the rest can go.
Keep costs down
Yep, Trev’s great advice, a race to the bottom
Quick Quigley will sort it in the first 100 days…..
Don`t worry folks now Labour are in power they will sort out everything !!
All of OUR utility bill have risen too.
But, unlike the unemployed and those just ‘doing’ 16 hours a week because they have blessed us all with their child to fund, WE have to pay full fees, whereas these two groups pay nothing and are the reason why they are underfunded and thus why WE have to pay even more.
Time to cut the apron strings from the council to the spongers and 16 hours a week work shy.
For the new Government will be giving them much more so get them to pay now. Simple.
I say good luck to them if they can get away with it.
I bet you beg our government to send money to Ukraine but hate the thought if it helping our own people.
Well said. Benefits should NOT be a lifestyle choice unless you truly cannot work for health reasons. That’s why there’s no council money for anything else much other than Adults’ and Children’s Services now.
Sounds socialist! Public services should be making a profit, the roads should get toll booths. We voted for capitalism, not socialism!
Ah, yes, privatised water, privatised energy, franchised transport … idiot.
Islandwide permit parking would generate enough
revenue to keep costs down.
Fining every speeding motorist/motorcyclist, every illegal exhaust, every driver on a phone would raise even more.
Heavy fines are needed to stop these uneducated Numpty’s who
break the rules.
Re-open Camp Hill and house them there for a few months
Bread and water only, take their phones off them and their
baby dummies vaping machines
Lol
Welcome Isle of Wight council to the cost of living crisis we have been experiencing for a while now… yet you muppets kept putting up our council tax and business rates…. But hold on you been talking our money and not expecting your bills to go up? Where’s our money been going? I hope you have to go bankrupt!! Paying over the odds in wages and bonuses….you can not really be saying this far in to a cost of living crisis that it’s affecting you? Bunch of out of touch dreamers!!!
Did someone at the council fix the rates at something ridiculous??
Didn’t they change over to eco friendly solar heating and electricity in the past year or two?
So they have already been bailed out to the tune of £500,000 and they are still in a massive loss.
A bit like the NHS, throwing more money at it isn’t going to solve the problem. The only chance is better and fully accountable management…
If they did, it clearly hasn’t worked…
With the correct solar/battery installation, their electric bill should be minimal. An ‘average’ household with a decent solar/battery installlation can reduce their annual energy bill by some 60% or more.( Gas and electric)
Yes they did and heat pumps.
Yet Starmer has pledged more devolved services to the local Councils….
Good luck with that, we’ll revisit that in maybe two years to see how that is working out.
Only if you’ve got a Mayor. Are you standing?
No chance of me becoming Mayor, wrong ethnic background.
The IoW council are adopting a committee system in 2025 which will also give them the powers to take the next step, which is a Mayoral structure.
Starmer is fully behind changing the UK constitution and was quite vociferous about it but obviously thought it best to keep quiet about it in the run up to the “election”
The recent huge grants they have received are supposed to be used at least in part to fit solar panels, thus massively reducing their energy costs. No mention of that?
Once again it’s only the working famillies who will have to give up going for a workout after work. the freeloading chavs will still get it all for free. The freeloaders should have to pay like anyone else, they are all poncing more free handouts than a workman brings home. Come on Starmer get this taking the piss out of the system sorted.
Obviously, the lazy arsed island population aren’t using these facilities enough to justify paying to keep them open. A solution would be forcing people on benefits to use the gyms to get in better shape so they can come off benefits and work. Lots of these people are just fat and unfit, and their “health problems” could be fixed by doing regular exercise, eating simple healthy food, and not drinking and smoking. The gyms would then pay for themselves by saving us paying out on benefits for idlers.
Exactly, who is going to bother working when everything is handed free on a plate, these are the ones taking the piss out of the system where all the money is going, but there’s never been anyone in government with the balls to question it. It’s easier to stop payments to the pensioners and the disabled because they know they can’t fight back. MAYBE there is someone in now who will GROW A PAIR. Why should these waste of space scrotes be aloud to live their whole life poncing off others. Free housing and deliberate brat breeding to get more and more handouts should be questioned for starters, and they should be taxed on their free income. A workman is taxed on his, and HE has grafted for it
Cutting the loafers benefits to the very bone, and just giving non transferable photo id vouchers for children’s food and clothes would ensure that the parent as they usually fake being single parents as more money is given, would work and use the free contraception to stop burdening society with more future benefit claims.
estates are full of such now. Most all will be on more money than a full time min hours worker too, AND they have less outgoings on rent, and c. tax too.