Agenda item

            The Committee considered the undernoted report:

“1.Relevant Background Information

      The purpose of this report is to seek Committee approval for the extension of Out of Hours agreements under which sports clubs use Belfast City Council leisure facilities for training purposes.

      The Parks and Leisure Committee at its meeting on 11 December 2008 agreed to extend out of hours use of leisure centres to all clubs and adopted a charging rate of £20 per hour as a contribution towards utilities costs. This rate was subsequently reduced to £10 per hour at Committee on 10 September 2009. At the January 2011 Committee this rate was then increased as part of the annual review of the scale of charges for the financial year 2011/12. There was no increase in cost for the current financial year.

      The Parks and Leisure Committee at its meeting on 13 October 2011 approved the extension of the Out of Hours agreements to 31 March 2012.

      Currently six water based clubs/governing body and one tennis club avail of the out of hours facilities totalling 22.5 hours per week.

      Centres using out of hours include; Andersonstown, Ballysillan, Falls, Indoor Tennis Arena and Olympia.

      The current participating groups have submitted interim reports giving feedback on the benefits of participating in the scheme and any other issues arising.  The highlights from this feedback are presented in Table 1.

      Table 1

      Comments from the clubs indicate that the out of hours service is highly valued and allows the clubs to keep costs down ensuring their membership fees are manageable. Many have spoken about the increased opportunity to train when it is increasingly difficult to get access to pool time during normal opening hours due to demand from the public.  Some clubs have indicated a recent increase in interest which they put down to the London 2012 Olympics.

2.   Key Issues

      The legal agreements for the second phase of the scheme ran until 31 March 2012 and since then all of the clubs have been ‘over-holding’ on their agreements.

      Subject to Committee approval it is proposed that the Department writes to the groups to extend their current agreements until 31 March 2013.

      It is also proposed that for future financial years, clubs will apply/reapply annually in January, directly to the Council and as before they will be scored against the agreed criteria. Following assessment the successful clubs will be required to enter into licensing agreements with Belfast City Council to use the facilities out of hours and will be subject to management control and random checking.

      Use of the centres for competitions will not be considered under this scheme as charging for out-of-hours competition bookings are identified within the normal pricing policy

      Grove Well Being Centre – Belfast Health Trust has reconfirmed that that it is not prepared to allow access to the Grove Well Being Centre without staff present. Out of hours access will not be offered at this site.

      Out of hours use should not displace current bookings, but must increase the amount of training time available to clubs beyond their current levels

      Applications should be open to Belfast based sports clubs recognised by Sport NI or Belfast City Council.

3.   Resource Implications

      If current out of hours usage is maintained this will generate approximately £4,500 for the period October 2012 to March 2013.

4.   Equality and Good Relations Implications

      None.

5.   Recommendations

      It is recommended that Committee approve the extension of the current Out of Hours agreements to 31 March 2013 and the acceptance of an annual process for out of hours bookings.”

            The Committee adopted the recommendations.