COUNCIL SURVEY QUESTIONS TOWNSFOLK ON PLUSES AND MINUSES OF EXERCISE HABITS

CONSULTANTS BROUGHT IN TO IDENTIFY 'BEST DIRECTION' OF REPLACEMENT STRATEGY FOR TOWN'S AGEING COMPLEX

HOUSEHOLDS in Atherstone and district are being asked to "come clean" on their exercise habits in a survey designed to help advise councillors on the future direction of leisure across the borough.

The questionnaire aims to find out what "prevents" local people taking regular workouts and which leisure facilities would "encourage" them to do more activity.

The poll is part of a strategic review by North Warwickshire Borough Council aimed at determining the right path for delivery of its leisure and physical activity service provision across the area.

The local authority has engaged Middlesex management firm Max Associates as its consultants to support this project.

The company, with two decades of extensive experience across the sport, leisure and cultural sectors, has a portfolio of successful contract procurement with more than a dozen small and medium-sized councils across the UK.

The North Warwickshire authority – criticised for imposing costs of £53,000 on council taxpayers to employ the outside consultants – maintains that "strategically-directed leisure services and facilities can have a significant and positive impact on physical and mental health and wellbeing, economic regeneration, educational attainment and social cohesion, as well as being important in their own right".

It says it has taken the decision to implement the Strategic Outcomes Planning Model exercise to help identify the best direction for the ageing facilities of Atherstone Leisure Complex and Polesworth Sports Centre.

A report to the council's Community and Environment Board in March said Atherstone LC – built in 1975 with a Millennium makeover finishing in 2001 and currently closed through Covid-19 – is skirting with "infrastructure failure" and basically past its sell-by-date.

It is "beyond being capable of accommodating any form of extensive refurbishment and so any form of infrastructure failure would be seen as its responsibility".

The report adds: "The potential for such a failure exists due to the age and identified condition of the building and its associated plant."

Board chairman Margaret Bell admitted: "Atherstone Leisure Centre has reached a point of unmaintaining now."

She told the committee: "What has been done so far doesn't get us to where we want to be.

"We need to reach the people who are not taking part at the moment. What do they want? Why are they not using it? Questions need answering."

On appointing consultants, Labour Councillor Jacky Chambers claimed the move appeared to be "just repeating work already done" as a previous consultancy had cost around £70,000.

She asked the council's Community and Environment Board: "What is the added value of spending on this piece of work?

"Even with this consultant, my fear is we won't have anything concrete in terms of a finished model or a proposal."

Announcing the review, the council said: "We are undertaking to inform the important decisions required that will enable the authority to deliver a longer-term, sustainable investment in local leisure facilities, most particularly in respect of the provision made in Atherstone and Polesworth, where the current facilities are relatively old."

It went on: "To support this process, the borough bouncil and its consultants have developed a community survey which asks about people's exercise habits, the things that prevent them from exercising, which leisure facilities they use and what would encourage them to exercise more frequently.

"It is quick and anonymous to complete and will help to inform the decisions to be taken by councillors about future service provision

Council leader David Wright urged the whole of North Warwickshire to take part to find out what is required to "meet the needs of our local community".

He added: "I would encourage everyone to complete and return the anonymous survey.

"The views of our residents are essential in ensuring that we provide the right facilities and services that will be valued by local people for many years to come."

The survey, which can accessed here , runs until June 7.