Northumberland leisure centres ‘decimated’ by pandemic - £5million on services revealed

Active Northumberland, the county council’s leisure partner, closed all of its centres when the coronavirus lockdown started in March in line with Government guidance.

Nine of its key leisure centres in Northumberland’s main towns reopened on July 25 and August 1, with new restrictions in place, but the four-month shutdown had a major impact on Active’s finances.

An update to the Tuesday, September 8, meeting of the council’s cabinet reported that the tourism, culture, leisure and heritage service is forecast to overspend by £5.1million in 2020-21.

It states: ‘Due to the closure of leisure facilities, Active Northumberland furloughed the majority of its staff from April 1 on 100% of their salary.

‘The council agreed to provide financial support to fund the 20% top-up from April 1 to June 30 in the form of an increase to the management fee, estimated at £420,000.

“Discussions continue to take place between Active Northumberland and the council to identify what further financial support is required. The forecast currently assumes the worst-case scenario which is estimated at £4.58million’.

Cllr Nick Oliver, the cabinet member for corporate services, said: “There’s £5million in the budget to support the county’s leisure services, which have obviously been decimated as all the leisure centres run by Active Northumberland had to close.

“I am happy to report that they are now reopening, there’s a restricted service, but most of them are operating again, so that £5million figure is under constant review.

“There’s been some extra resources supplied to help Active remodel and revisit those figures, so we can try to minimise the extra cost between now and the end of the year.”

This is just one area of additional spending which contributes to a predicted financial hit from Covid-19 of £37.4million this year.

However, this is offset by £21.8million of Government grants received by the council so far plus underspends in other ‘business as usual’ areas.

Overall, the forecast, as at the end of June, was for a £9.3million overspend in 2020-21, but the meeting heard that by the end of July, this had already dropped to £7.3million.

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