Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Director of Regeneration and Culture submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration. The purpose of the report was to provide an overview of Middlesbrough’s Leisure Indoor Built Facility Strategy, with a view to its adoption by the Council, for use as a point of reference for decisions pertaining to Middlesbrough’s sport/leisure built facilities.

The Leisure Indoor Built Facilities Strategy (IBFS) was intended to provide clear direction to all partners to enable them to plan and develop programmes of activity within modern, efficient and sustainable community-based sport/leisure facilities. The strategy aimed to ensure that Middlesbrough residents had the opportunity to develop their physical, sporting, health and wellbeing ambitions within their local community. The strategy was included at Appendix 2 of the submitted report.

The Middlesbrough IBFS, undertaken by specialist sport and leisure consultants, Knight Kavanagh and Page (KKP), was for the 15-year period 2019 - 2034. The recommendations made within the IBFS were drawn from the IBFS Needs Assessment, also undertaken by KKP.

Central to the IBFS was Sport England’s directive that local authorities should seek to protect, provide and enhance its indoor/built sport/leisure facilities.

The IBFS Needs Assessment was attached at Appendix 1 of the submitted report. The Needs Assessment had identified key points in relation to Middlesbrough’s sport and leisure indoor built facilities and those were identified at paragraph 8 of the report.

Utilising the evidence gained in the IBFS Needs Assessment, KKP had identified a number of key strategic objectives the Council may have wished to consider. Those objectives were detailed at paragraph 9 of the report.

OPTIONS

The Council could have chosen not to adopt the IBFS, however, that approach had not been recommended for the following reasons:

a)     It would have undermined the strategic rationale for decisions pertaining to sport/leisure built facilities.

b)     The lack of a strategic rationale, for decisions pertaining sport/leisure built facilities, would have significantly hampered the capability of the Council to work with partners to attract external investment in projects.

ORDERED

That Middlesbrough Leisure Indoor Built Facility Strategy be adopted for use, as a source of reference, in decisions pertaining to Middlesbrough’s sport/leisure indoor built facilities.

REASONS

To provide the Council with a strategic foundation upon which to make decisions relating to the protection, provision and enhancement of Middlesbrough’s sport/leisure indoor built facilities. The same strategic basis would also increase the Council’s capacity to work with partners to attract investment in projects that protect, provide and enhance the town’s sport/leisure built facilities.

The IBFS had been delivered through consultation with all relevant stakeholders, following the guidelines set out by Sport England.