You might have seen the recent coverage around the threats facing staff at New Forest District Council-owned leisure centres, despite a £750,000 taxpayer-funded bailout paid to the private company running them.

In 2021, Freedom Leisure was handed an 11-year contract to run five New Forest District Council facilities in Lymington, New Milton, Ringwood, Applemore and Totton, despite opposition from the public and a campaign led by your local Labour Party. Now, even thought they have been handed a rescue package by NFDC’s Conservative cabinet, the company are proposed the loss of the equivalent of 11 full-time jobs.

In response to this, our secretary, Jennie Worsdale sent the following letter, which was published in the New Milton Advertiser:

Sir

Regarding the difficulties now being encountered by Freedom Leisure following the outsourcing of NFDC leisure centres, (“Leisure centre staff fear cuts to jobs and pay” – A&T Aug. 5th), it is hard not to see NFDC itself as the cause of some of the outcomes now being faced.

Whilst any business would undoubtedly have been impacted by the pandemic and the national economic crisis, once you decide to outsource a public service you lose the ability to directly manage and control the decisions that affect staff, customers and the future of the service. Councillors (with council staff), who are democratically responsible and accountable to the whole community, may reasonably be taking a different approach to that of Freedom Leisure at this time if the service was still in public hands.

For example, they might consider that the likely impact of cutting maintenance staff (as mooted by Freedom Leisure) is that we, the New Forest Community, end up with infrastructure, which is currently ‘leased’ to Freedom Leisure, becoming degraded. Equally, motivated and professional staffing could have continued to be a bedrock of a publicly managed leisure service, rather than staff conditions and pay being eroded as is being proposed.

In 2021, in the face of local opposition from many local community groups and users, NFDC went ahead with privatisation, primarily based on the narrow view that they simply wanted to cut costs. I take no pleasure in suggesting that we were all correct, and that this public asset should have stayed firmly in public control, benefitting the whole community well into the future. Hopefully, this is a lesson we will all learn from.

We are also hugely grateful to local member Stuart Nundy who took it open himself to submit a letter on the issue, which was also published:

We are hugely grateful to all members who contact the media to present a better way forward and to uphold Labour values. Local councillors and MPs pay attention to these letters, as do local residents, so please do take the opportunity to do so where you can.