Shropshire Star

Shropshire sports funding cuts criticised

Cutting funding to Shropshire's more rural sports and leisure services will undermine the "viability and resilience of the smaller communities" in the county, a town council has said.

Published

Church Stretton Town Council has issued a strongly critical response to Shropshire Council's proposed new sports facilities strategy, which is being consulted on until September 30.

Under the strategy both Teme Church Stretton leisure centre and the SpArC leisure centre in Bishop's Castle are under threat, as funding is set to be slashed to zero from April 2018.

Now town councillors have issued a formal response to the proposals, saying there is a "fundamental mismatch between the declared aims of this draft strategy and the impact that its proposals would have on the majority of Shropshire's population".

Shropshire Council says the new strategy aims to provide "sufficient high-quality, fit for purpose and accessible facilities" for all, by investing in three "community leisure hubs" in Ludlow, Shrewsbury and Oswestry.

Meanwhile the authority will work with "key organisations" over the next year to find alternative funding and management for other facilities such as the Church Stretton and Bishop's Castle leisure centres.

But in a statement on behalf of Church Stretton Town Council, town clerk Marian Giles said re-directing resources from smaller towns would "further unbalance" them.

"By making facilities less accessible, it undermines the commitment to promote sporting achievement in our young people and the promotion of health benefits for older people, particularly relevant to Church Stretton, given the geriatric weighting of its population," she said.

She said the proposals would make "what is already a demonstrably unfair and inequitable distribution of local council taxes even worse".

"The smaller market towns are already having to pay markedly higher council tax rates as a consequence of this past bias, as can be seen from the comparative Band D council tax rates for 2016/2017 – Shrewsbury £39.89, Oswestry £69.92 and Ludlow £107.06, as compared to Church Stretton £160.02, Whitchurch £148.85 and Wem £146.32.

"It is no longer tenable to expect the smaller towns and rural areas to subsidise the larger towns and then expect them to pay again, if they wish to retain any of these non-statutory services themselves," she said.

"This leaves the smaller market towns, where libraries and sport and leisure facilities are located, in the worst position of all – having to subsidise these facilities in the larger 'hub' towns and receiving no assistance from surrounding parish councils whose residents make use of their own towns' services.

"Unless the system is changed, these proposals will contribute to the ongoing undermining of the viability and resilience of the smaller communities in this county."

However, she urged Shropshire Council, there is still time "to engage in a debate about a fairer, more appropriate and democratically accountable system of funding local non-statutory services."

Shropshire Council is urging people and organisations to have their say on the proposals, which can be seen at the Shropshire Council website, by no later than Friday, September 30, 2016.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.