THE COVID-19 pandemic is still giving leisure centres in Okehampton and Tavistock a financial battering, council officers are to be told.

Next Tuesday’s West Devon Borough Council hub committee will be told that membership at Tavistock’s Meadowlands and its sister leisure centre Parklands in Okehampton is still around 30 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels.

A report to the committee is recommending that £58, 639 be drawn out of the council’s Covid-19 reserves to bolster a loss of management fee income at the centres during the pandemic and its aftermath.

That is on top of the £435,000 to allow its centres to remain open through to March 2021 after the pandemic closed them both for business and a further near £85,500 through the National Leisure overy Fund, set up by the Government to offset losses suffered in the leisure industry during the Covid-19 crisis, to help Fusion pay for the reopening of the two centres.

Both centres, although council-owned, are run by leisure company Fusion Lifestyle, who were handed a 25-year contract in 2016. After lengthy closures due to on-off lockdowns to combat the virus, the centres were reopened in April this year.

The report said: ‘The Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact the current use and recovery of leisure centres across the country with challenging conditions still affecting Fusion Lifestyle, the council’s operator, following the reopening of the facilities in April 2021.’

It adds: ‘Access to leisure services and the health and well-being of the community are clearly linked; there is a connection between low levels of physical activity and an increased occurrence of certain health issues. There are other important reasons why higher levels of physical activity will have a positive effect on the overall health and well-being of a community.

’Sport England reports that increased opportunities for physical activity, and access to leisure and sporting facilities can help to reduce anxiety, stress or depression; improve levels of confidence and self-esteem and can help bring together people from diverse backgrounds.’

Latest figures show that membership at Meadowlands was 1,075 in March 2020, although that had dropped to 717 by August this year. At Parklands, membership was 824 last March and 522 this August.

Cornwall Council is carrying out a public consultation on how leisure services should be provided after operator GLL indicated that it could no longer afford to operate leisure centres in Falmouth, Launceston, Saltash and Wadebridge. The council has said that it has no money to run leisure services and says that it is not a statutory service that they have to provide.

People in the towns affected have been campaigning to save their local facilities and have called on the council to not close them down. Take part in the consultation at https://letstalk.cornwall.gov.uk/leisure