Monday, 10th March
Members of Supporters of Dimensions Splash (SODS) today handed 3,000 signatures to Stoke on Trent city council. The signatures have been collected in protest of the decision to close the Dimensions splashpool in Scotia Road, Burslem, two weeks ago.
Alison Wedgwood (pictured right with her children Freya and Zak in the centre), a regular user of Dimensions whose children handed the petition to councillor Dave Conway, has made a number of suggestions for cost recovery that would make Dimensions more sustainable.
Alison, an economist, said: "the big slide and rapids teach children that swimming is fun and exciting more than any formal lessons can, it makes them enjoy the water and thousands of our children are much better swimmers becayse they spent their early years at Dimensions. Then there are the social benefits for disabled users, the fact that the facility is in the heart of our city and easily accessible by low income families. These benefits can all be quantified."
The options for cost recovery she has suggested are:
- Add 35p onto the cost of admission (based on 170,000 users per year)
- improve the cafe and party facilities to increase average spend by 50p per person, making £85,000
- charge £1 for the carpark, encouraging people within a manageable distance to walk
- bring in a private food franchise to raise funds
Meanwhile, Local Edition has sent the following questions to local councillors and the press office and will add comments from councillors, officers and members of the community as we get them.
Questions:
- Why has the decision to close Dimensions come before the sports and physical activity strategy has been completed, when much of the evidence it provides appear to support the provision of the splash pool for our most vulnerable communities? (notes in Comments)
- what alternative affordable provisions are available for young children, the elderly and the disabled?
- why has no evidence of consultation or even public council discussion, including amongst the staff of Dimensions, been presented? Wouldn't the budget consultation event/questionnaire have been a good opportunity to consult on a spending issue that is clearly very important to people?
- given the strength of opinion displayed in the petition handed in today, will you be reconsidering the decision?
Updates & responses
Monday March 10th
- the SODS campaign site has added a discussion page asking whether a social enterprise model could present a viable compromise.
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Further extracts from council papers follow:
Document attached: extracts:
(BME communities)
However, very low car ownership may mean that the migrants have fewer opportunities to travel to sports facilities than some
of the long established communities.
(elderly communities)
The implications for sport and active recreation are important, as people's
expectations and requirements change as they age. Some sports such as competitive
athletics are dominated by young people, others are mainly attractive to older people,
such as bowls. The demands for swimming and for sports halls are also affected by
the age factor.
In relation to facilities, there is therefore a need to look to the future. If there are
sufficient facilities now for the population and there is likely to be less demand in the
future, then provision of additional facilities would not be appropriate. Conversely,
new facilities may be needed to cater for older people, with a particular focus on local
provision.
(communities within walking distance)
Research shows that those people who are least active may be encouraged to become
more so by providing facilities and targeted activities within walking distance from
home. This Strategy therefore places greater emphasis than previous Strategies on
local facilities and on sport development and associated 'outreach' work. Local
facilities include neighbourhood and district parks, and built facilities such as
community centres.
Brief for sports strategy: http://www.moderngov.stoke.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.asp?ID=5503&J=16
Extracts:
2 Context
2.1 Stoke-on-Trent is the 18th most deprived local authority area in England.
29.8% of the population live in areas classified as being in the 10% most
deprived in England. 50.4% of the population live in areas classified as
being in the 20% most deprived in England.
2.5 The city has a long sporting tradition with football being one of the most
popular sports as shown by the city's support for two professional football
clubs and the large number of community football clubs and teams. The
City Council and its partners have a strong tradition of supporting the
provision of sport & physical activity, however results of the Active People
survey shows 84.2% of the city's adult population are not doing the
recommended level of physical activity, i.e. being active for 30 minutes or
more on at least 3 occasions per week. The survey also showed that
participation of three times 30 minutes a week in Stoke is only 15.8%
which is in bottom quartile nationally, low against the West Midlands
participation of 19.3%, and nationally 21%. A key ambition is therefore to
develop a challenging Sport and Active Recreation Strategy to help drive
up participation and contribute to improving health and reducing obesity in
the City.
...
2.7 Under the guidance of the old Sport & Active Recreation Strategy, sport
and physical activity has benefited from significant investment over the last
five years through a wide range of initiatives such as the, National Lottery
and assorted regeneration programmes. Key initiatives have included the
creation of four new sports centres, the regeneration of three major grass
pitch sites and the development of several large scale and high profile
revenue initiatives such as Closing the Gap and the Football Action
programme. Despite these very positive steps participation is still currently
very low. As a result it is important that preparation of a new strategy
considers sports facilities and opportunities in a holistic manner. The
resultant strategy should seek to understand the barriers that exist to
increasing participation and guide the city in responding to these
challenges in a way which whilst affordable to the City Council and its
partners, will be deliverable, sustainable and fit for purpose.
3.6 The city benefits from a good basic sporting infrastructure in public
management including:
• A good network of sports courts at a neighbourhood level,
• 52 council owned grass sports pitches and several more in community
and other ownership,
• several swimming pools with public access,
• A number of community sports complexes including:
• Fenton Manor a regionally important indoor sports complex,
• Dimensions Leisure Centre which offers both a very popular
leisure pool and artificial grass pitches.
• Northwood Stadium a regionally important athletics centre,
• Wallace Sport & Education Centre, a key community facility
• Burslem specialist gymnastic centre,
• Dual use of several sports facilities located at school sites.
3.7 There are also several commercial providers operating within the city
including:
• Water World a large leisure pool complex which now also offers
children's gymnastics.
• Several commercial fitness centres.
• A number of martial arts, boxing and dance centres.
• Provision for five a side football.
• A dry ski centre.
Phase one study will include consultation with
o Focus group consultation with key target groups where
possible including:
Young people
BME community (this will require further sub
division to ensure meaningful results are obtained)
People with limiting disabilities
Low income groups
Over 45's
http://www.moderngov.stoke.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.asp?ID=5505&J=16
- phase one report
Discussion on this report at
http://www.moderngov.stoke.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.Asp?CId=402&MID=1703&J=15
Extracts:
Summary
The phase one report is intended to inform the preparation of the Joint North
Staffordshire Core Strategy and seeks to identify key issues and general policy
directions rather than detailed plans. More detailed plans will be incorporated in
the phase two report which is due in March 2008.
People
• Maximise opportunities presented by the Olympics to encourage
people to be more active, and to take up sport.
• Maximise the local interest in foreign teams using Stoke as a
training base for the Olympics.
• Step up outreach work in parks and green spaces, and in
community centres.
• Co-ordinate outreach programmes and ensure strategic delivery
across the range of providers, including the private and voluntary
sectors, and other agencies.
• Establish a Community Sports Network (as defined by Sport
England) to aid co-ordination, and this must involve both city-wide
and neighbourhood levels.
• Support clubs to develop their memberships (via more coaches,
facility availability etc)
• Support schemes such as "football in the community".
• Review the Recreation Key scheme to ensure that it is being
effective in reaching target groups, and to ensure that cost is not a
barrier to participation.
• Enable funding from developers' contributions to be channelled
into revenue projects in addition to capital programmes.
Places
• Confirm revised network of swimming pools for the City, and
investment programme and begin implementation.
• Confirm revised network of sports halls for community use. Begin
implementation via schools reorganisation programme and other
investment.
• Deliver new dual-use sports facilities via the schools
reorganisation/BSF programme, which will include; sports halls,
pools, fitness gyms, multi-use space.
• Maximise the opportunities to co-locate facilities and services,
such as health centre with fitness gyms.
• Determine the future management arrangements for the public
leisure facilities, and begin to implement.
• Encourage the private and voluntary sectors to develop new
facilities which meet identified community needs.
• Retain sport and active recreation sites unless detailed local
research shows that they are no longer required for that, or any
other sport or physical activity.
• Where sports sites are lost, the value of these should be
reinvested in improving/providing new sports facilities.
• Confirm location and opportunities for new specialist sports
facilities, which may be linked to schools, such as the badminton
performance centre, or indoor climbing walls.
• Undertake feasibility studies and confirm potential locations for the
following facilities that would probably need to be located on sites
other than schools:
o Athletics (linked to University Quarter)
o 2 indoor bowls centres (one in North, one in South of city)
with parking.
o Training/Academy/football in the community site for Port
Vale FC (consisting of minimum 10 ha) with ancillary
facilities in the north of the City.
o Indoor Tennis Centre (possibly University Quarter)
o 1 rugby site - 9 ha pitch site, plus training area with
floodlights and ancillary facilities
o Climbing wall (indoor) - location and number to be
determined.
o Cricket pitches (1 or 2 sites) with ancillary facilities.
o Cycling - closed road circuit in south of City (possibly
Longton-Florence area)
o Golf - driving range with parking and ancillary facilities
o Additional golf courses (18 hole)
o Gymnastics centre (possibly University Quarter)
o Ski slope - site to be determined.
o Ice rink - site to be determined.
• Plan sports facilities and green spaces into each of the Area
Action Plans.
• Develop a tariff for new development and improving the quality of
existing facilities that enables funding for revenue programmes as
well as capital, both on and off site.
• Ensure continuation and strengthening of the quality assured
network of sports facilities and green spaces, including achieving
Green Flag for a number of the district parks.
• Confirmation of the new district parks proposals for Meir and
Stoke.
• Confirmation of and implementation of the new University Quarter
sports proposals.
• Development of other area specific initiatives, including a sports
hub/cluster around Burslem which will have co-ordinated
programming and management of a range of sports and active
recreation facilities, and involve a number of different
providers/funders, including PCT, Port Vale FC, private
membership clubs, schools and Stoke-on-Trent City Council
facilities.
• Retain and enhance the network of quality assured sites (QUEST,
Green Flag etc), at minimum to meet the Performance Indicators
set by Government.
3.2 Equality and diversity
3.2.1 National research shows that many groups in society experience
additional barriers to their participation including the BME community,
people with disabilities, migrants, and those from deprived communities.
The new sports strategy will seek to recognise that these inequalities
exist and develop proposals that will during the lifetime of the document
seek to reduce these leaving to greater levels of participation.
3.4 Financial
3.4.1 The production of the strategy is anticipated to cost in the region of
£50,000 which will be met from Sport & Leisure Services budgets. In
addition £20,000 has been offered by Sport England via their community
investment fund to support the additional costs arising from the use of
their Facilities Planning Model.
3.4.2 Although it is currently impossible to identify specific financial implications
from the new strategy. A key aspect of the final strategy will be its ability
to act as a lever for obtaining external resources from funders such as
the National Lottery. Additionally the strategy will seek to secure
investments from development in the local area to support the proposals
identified.
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