In his 2018 lecture covering 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari discussed how questions that were philosophical and theoretical in nature had been raised with very little impact on human life, yet more recently these questions increasingly became practical considerations. Weirdly, my academic research had followed this theme. As the Covid-19 Pandemic led to a complete lockdown and a temporary closure of many leisure facilities across England, the future of these facilities seemed in doubt and questions arose over who should be running them. To answer these questions within a local context, I spent my summer break working with community leaders and leaders of sport clubs in my hometown, Peterborough. We were lobbying Peterborough City Council to provide clarity on the future of local leisure facilities and services, and in particular cases, allow community groups to step in and provide short-term facility management. The reason for my involvement in this campaign was that before starting my PhD I worked for Vivacity, a charitable trust that operated he leisure services across Peterborough, and whilst working there, I competed for and volunteered with, Peterborough and Nene Athletics Club (PANVAC). A club I have been involved with for over a decade. In June, Vivacity made a public announcement on June 18 that due to losses in excess of £8m, the council will be taking back the service delivery contract for all assets that Vivacity were responsible for, including the leisure centres, Art Deco Lido, and the athletics track. Vivacity was formed in 2010 to reduce financial burdens on the Peterborough City Council and to unlock additional funding avenues through grants from Sport England, the Art Council and other National Lottery Funds that Local Authorities are not able to access. In doing so, Vivacity had reduced its reliance on the city council year on year. After the damaging austerity led Local Authority fiscal reductions in 2014, Vivacity was able to reduce service provision whilst still keeping assets open and accessible through pioneering self-service systems.
Witnessing this was hard, especially as I had spent the prior 12 months researching the ownership of leisure facilities by communities, trusts and the transfer of such facilities when previously owned by Local Authorities. However, there was little time to contemplate what once was as the morning after this announcement I was asked to feature in a BBC Cambridgeshire radio discussion with John Holdich the leader of Peterborough City Council. After this interview I was contacted by the former MP for the City, the former Mayor, and members of clubs that voluntarily ran some of these at risk facilities. They were looking for support in working with Peterborough City Council to ensure an appropriate resolve was found, given my PhD research, my background with Vivacity, and my volunteering in these clubs, I felt obliged. My first point of call was to get the word out to people in Peterborough about the need for transparency from the Council. I wanted to get the community in Peterborough to join me in pressuring the council. As community is quite tight knit in Peterborough this needed to be done in a way that stays at community level. I agreed to write an op-ed piece for Peterborough Matters, a growing media outlet that focusses on community stories. The piece was shared nearly 100 times directly from the site and much more across social media. The exposure this created for my PhD project was incredible. I had gone from deeply exploring academic texts for my literature review to providing detailed insight into what the future of my city could be. It’s worth bearing in mind that with each media appearance, the producer would also contact the council for a statement, so there was pressure from both the community and the media for further clarity.
Now that my project and the campaigning was garnering attention from local residents, we were at a point where the club (PANVAC) needed to really be clear regarding it’s position on who should be running the athletics facility. The chair of the club wanted to inform the council that the club would be willing to run things in the short term. We decided to have another media run with this message. The chair put a notice in to the Council that this was their position, and that they wanted to help speed up the opening of the facility. However, understandably the Council were stretched in responding. Therefore, we used a variety of platforms to encourage the council to hear this proposal. Firstly, I participated in a heated discussion with well known broadcaster Kev Lawrence on BBC Breakfast.
Secondly, we had a story published on BBC Look East
In working with the BBC producer who was putting together this story, I was put in contact with former Mayor of Peterborough, John Peach. Both of us were approaching this issue from a similar perspective, only he was applying his experience of local politics whereas I was applying my experience of research leisure provision, working for Vivacity, and being a regular service user. We decided to work together and we added pressure in the Full Council Meeting. He had been campaigning to reopen the Lido in the City and had offered his own money for this.
The last bit of pressure was on BBC Drivetime and with a story featured in both Peterborough Today and Peterborough Matters. We had now reached over 5 million people, and local residents had joined us in voicing their concerns as to why the Council had not accepted a proposal for short term facility operation. The day after, the Council accepted our proposal.
There are many relevant Einstein quotes about this whole experience, particularly “those with the privilege to know, have the duty to act”, because of the relevance my PhD project had for this campaign. However, the effectiveness of this campaign was only partly due to the research. The effectiveness was mainly from engaging communities and maintaining a consistent aim. By pushing for transparency we had a consistent message which we continually pushed and reinforced for.
I was lucky that my project had practical application for such deeply theoretical context.
This story will continue with an interview with John Peach on Sunday and some original research next week.
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