Mark is the CEO of CommunityLeisureUK, a members body representing more than 3,700 facilities across the UK – including gyms, swimming pools, libraries and museums. Its 110 members operate more than 3,800 facilities, which in total received 233m customer visits in 2019 and have a combined turnover of around £2bn. In July, Community Leisure launched the Saveleisure campaign with other leisure leaders.
Thier aim is to unlock vital funds for the community leisure sector. Without such funds being invested in community leisure trusts and facilities, 50% of community owned facilities could close permanently by the end of the year.
Mark gave his perspective on a few issues. Firstly he addressed the need to support facilities with reopening after lockdown.
"To date, our sector has received little financial support, yet our facilities play a critical role in society improving the public’s physical and mental health and helping to reduce the burden on the NHS. Without financial support we will lose many of these precious facilities for good depriving communities across the UK of vital public services at a time when the government is urging people to get fit and lose weight to beat Covid-19. Once again, we urge the government to support the sector to ensure the survival of public leisure provision."
Mark also lent his support to our local campaign, by joining me and local campaigners in emphasising the importance of local leisure provision. This placed further pressure on the council to work with local communities to ensure alternative short term facility management.
"Communities, families and people are dealing with a crisis that was unimaginable only four months ago which is impacting on the physical and mental health of the nation. On the 25 July leisure and sports facilities could reopen legally which was a very welcome milestone enabling thousands of people to flock back to their community facilities in valuable need of a boost to their health and wellbeing. Sadly, however, Peterborough’s facilities remain closed and I hope the proactivity demonstrated by forward thinking community activists can be harnessed so these facilities, so essential to the communities they serve in a time of unprecedented need, can reopen again very soon."
Much of the work that’s being done is about strategic partnerships. Something that Mark has emphasised with his work.
“After four to six months of closure with zero income and faced with a reopening / recovery period fraught with financial and operational challenges, the collaborative response of the sector to the crisis has been remarkable. Faced with an unprecedented crisis the sector has demonstrated a can do tenacious approach. Many operators have:
Redeployed people and repurposed facilities to provide local area COVID-19 community response hubs.
Quickly pivoted to provide engaging digital and outdoor offers during lockdown, including specialist intervention services such as the GM Active prehab4cancer service.
Committed to reopening facilities for communities as soon as possible, sometimes with significant financial risk.
Provided workforce professional development and redeployment opportunities to extend services and protect jobs.
The response to date demonstrates the commitment and true potential of the sector to play a much bigger role as part of a combined public service effort to improve the nations health and wellbeing. However, there is no doubt the sector is still in crisis, Government funding is required to support the uncertain reopening / recovery phase post lockdown. With significantly reduced resources in the public sector and leisure being a non-statutory public service we can be forgiven for being pessimistic about the future. The sector is and will continue to face a public service operating environment with an overarching mandate to maximise efficiency and effectiveness, put simply to survive and thrive the sector needs to find ways of delivering more and better outcomes for less. However, there is room for optimism, the sector has enormous potential, this could be a seize the moment opportunity for the sector to demonstrate, amongst widening health inequalities and increased demands on the health and social service systems, how it can play its part to deliver the long term preventative and cost reducing solution. This way the sector can make the case for a greater share of scarce public revenue on an invest to save basis. At the same time the sector needs to make the case for capital investment to refurbish and rebuild the 60% of public leisure facilities that are beyond their serviceable lifespan, and to simultaneously reconfigure facility estates to drive efficiency and reduce service subsidy requirements to a minimum, or cost neutral position when possible. By maintaining the exceptional partnership spirit generated during the crisis, the sector can coalesce to achieve a clear consensus around its future proposition. A proposition focussed upon improving health and wellbeing, that strikes the optimal balance between efficiency and effectiveness will be a game changer. It can pave the way for an investable national leisure strategy backed by Government and national, regional and local partners including Sport England, Community Leisure UK, CIMSPA, ukactive, CLOA, NGBs and Activity Partnerships. Such a strategy can provide a novel vision for the nations leisure assets and services with clear, common and accountable outcomes including early intervention / prevention services with flexibility to meet local approaches and outcomes."
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