George H Carnall Campaign

Friday 13/10/2017

We have now had a little bit of time to digest the extra £4.4 million being invested in Urmston Leisure Centre. On the face of it seems a reasonable pay off for eventually losing the G H Carnall Leisure Centre. 
But is it?

If you look a little more deeper in to this subject, some serious questions need to be answered.

For example the original plan was to invest £2.1 million in to ULC which included essential maintenance and minor alterations that did include reducing the size of the over subscribed sports hall.

After these works were completed which was to be around March 2018 then the G H Carnall would close for good. This much used and loved public asset which is home to a very unique and diverse range of sporting activities such as Gymnastics, Judo, Trampolining, Squash, Badminton, Five a Side Football, Pilates, Yoga and Boxercise to name just a few with the large sports hall being not only the host for most of these activities available to the residents of M41 but for events such as National Competitions, including Taekwondo and Kick Boxing but also Collectors Fairs such as Antique,Record and Radio plus Dance Shows, Cat and Dog Shows enjoyed by the wider community plus profiling how important the centre for it's multi use regionally, all gone forever!

We were told that lack of money meant that the leisure estate had to rationalise and the £2.1 million of the £24 million investment in the Leisure Estate in Trafford that would come to M41 should be rejoiced even though there would be a net loss of facilities in this area.

So bang! an extra £4.2 million is all of a sudden found for ULC bringing the total spend £6.4 million. This extra revenue has been created by borrowing £1.2 million with the rest of the funding yet to be fixed. This extra funding is based on the proviso that receipts will cover the investment. Hmmm!!.

We know that the new Altrincham Leisure Centre will cost £10 million and now we also know that it costs £6.4 million to build a glass facade and approximately 300 extra sq meters at the front of ULC. But that's okay because although we lose some space in the fitness suite to accommodate stairs we don't lose any space in the sports hall which was down for a small reduction on the original plan. Result!

Now not even the most optimistic nay delusional of people would say that all the activities that will be lost with the closure of the Carnall will be accommodated within the walls of the new gleaming glass fronted ULC. Oh but hold on there is. The very same people who are in charge of our public purse consider that spending an extra £4.4 million with exactly the same result as spending £2.1 million ie a nett loss of sporting facilities in M41 is good value!! What do you think?

So just a thought. How about the wild idea of spending £3.2 million on both ULC and George Carnall rather than just on creating an incredibly expensive green house.

Just a thought.