Council Shatters Hopes of Pool Agreement

Following our last blog post, which noted that the Trustees would be invoking the mediation clause in the lease agreement, Cllr Peacock posted comment on Facebook to say that the Council had previously agreed £500k to repair the pool and that this money was still available. He confirmed in response to one post that there was no ‘small print’.

On the basis of Cllr Peacock’s comments, I contacted him and expressed to him that I considered this was a good basis for a further meeting. We agreed that Facebook was not the forum for a detailed discussion. I duly made contact with his office and received an invite to a meeting from the Council. I subsequently spoke directly with Cllr Peacock on the morning of 8 January, when we appeared to agree that a meeting would be helpful. I was therefore optimistic that we might make progress.

Sadly and surprisingly, later that day Cllr Peacock issued a statement on the Newark and Sherwood District Council (NSDC) website, which was inaccurate and misleading in various respects, and hostile in tone.

Cllr Peacock blamed the Trustees for all of the problems which have arisen since the closure of the pool about 15 months ago. He rowed back from his Facebook assurance that there were no strings attached to the £500k, instead reinstating the Council’s previous position that the Trust had also to agree to termination of the 25 year lease agreement between them since 2021, which has a number of years to run to its first break clause.

Cllr Peacock asserted that the Trustees had ‘rejected the offer of a new pool’. This is not true. NSDC was well aware, from February 2024 at the latest, of the problems with the trust being inquorate, as a result of the majority of Trustees (the 6 NSDC councillor trustees) having a conflict of interest, leaving only 3 other trustees, not a big enough number to be able to make decisions legally.

No substantive action was taken by the Council to resolve the inquoracy issue until early May. Despite this, NSDC complained that the Trustees were not making decisions in a timely way. The unconflicted trustees were asked by NSDC to agree to a joint approach to the Charity Commission to sanction the freehold transfer of the leisure centre assets to NSDC, in exchange for the new pool. They did what they could, but were bound by Charity law. New trustees were put in place by NSDC at the beginning of May, which led to a quorate decision being made, but the Council then withdrew its offer of a new pool 2 weeks later.

NSDC is aware that, between May and July 2024, the trust board changed, the 7 member board now comprising 5 new independent trustees and only 2 Southwell town councillors, including myself as Chair of the new board. I have subsequently resigned as a town councillor. We also set up an advisory group of local people, who volunteered to assist us in our work.

At a meeting in late August 2024 the members of the new trust board made it clear to NSDC that they wanted to focus on pool repair and leave discussion of the lease until a later date, a position which NSDC appeared to accept. In order to discuss in detail lease termination and ensure the future of the leisure centre for the long-term, the trustees would need full financial information. Only part of the necessary information has been provided so far and it would be foolhardy and contrary to the responsibilities of the trustees to enter into an agreement of this kind blind.

Cllr Peacock asserted that ‘spending half a million pounds repairing an old pool in an old building is not the best use of taxpayers money, it would be like using sticking tape’. The new trustees were keen from their first meeting in July 2024 to undertake a comprehensive re-evaluation of the state of the pool and so commissioned various surveys, investigations etc with the generous help of various parties. We accept that this process took longer than originally anticipated and several months, but we are now confident that the pool can be restored and enhanced for just over £500k. The trustees have made NSDC aware on several occasions that the quotes supplied during December would render the pool functional for the long-term (likely several decades) and that we have not developed a ‘sticking tape’ solution. They have repeatedly refused to engage with us in detailed discussion of the quotes.

Cllr Peacock asserted that the Trust owned ‘a facility which it can’t afford to maintain and operate and wants the Council to bail it out from its own responsibility as the owner and landlord of the centre’. The truth of this issue is that there is a difference of opinion between the Council and the Trust about who has the legal obligation to repair the pool, according to the lease. We have obtained 2 legal opinions that the Council is responsible. The Trustees object strongly to the use of the term ‘bail out’ and consider that this is a gross distortion of the real position.

For these several reasons, the trustees regret that the thin ray of light which appeared earlier this week has been shut off by Cllr Peacock’s statement. Formal mediation will commence shortly.

The trustees are planning for a further public meeting within the next month.

Dr Philip Barron

Chair of Southwell Leisure Centre Trustees