Gloucestershire leisure centre sudden closure leads to more than 150 job losses

More than 150 people will lose their jobs as Gloucester’s GL1 Leisure Centre and Oxstalls Sports Park will close today and may not reopen for a year.

Aspire Sports and Cultural Trust, which has been running Gloucester City Council’s leisure services for 15 years, has gone into liquidation.

This means the Bruton Way gym and a swimming pool will be out of action for the foreseeable future along with the tennis courts, outdoor sports pitches and all other Aspire-run facilities at Oxstalls.

The decision has come as a shock to council chiefs who had an agreement in principle for the charity to continue running the services until September 2024.

In 2021, the authority started to review its options in terms of procuring a new leisure service and was advised in early 2022 to conduct a procurement exercise.

They were told they would need more time to carry out the procurement and were advised to agree to a one-year extension to the management contract they have with Aspire to take it up to 2024.

However, the City Council’s understanding is that Aspire are currently in discussions with administrators and effectively their contract with them comes to an end tomorrow, September 30.

Council leaders say they have been discussing that proposal with Aspire managers since March last year and were optimistic that it would be agreed as they had an agreement in principle.

This extension would allow the council enough time to go through a procurement process, appoint a provider and if it was a different provider to Aspire, allow the new provider to take over and gear up to run the services from September next year.

Council chiefs were optimistic and believed an agreement on the one-year extension to the contract would be achieved.

However, earlier this week Aspire’s board held a meeting to consider that and concluded that they couldn’t continue as a going concern and have taken the decision to wind up the charity and go into liquidation.

It is understood that the trust does not believe it will be able to continue to operate even with a significant amount of additional council support which was part of their negotiation process with the City Council.

They have been severely challenged by a number of financial pressures including the coronavirus pandemic and more recently the stark rise in utility costs and general inflation.

As part of the 12-month extension agreement the council had proposed to do a programme of improvements to the facilities.

The City Council has provided more than £1.53m extra to support the trust since 2019 and was proposing to give them another £260,000 until the end of the financial year.

A spokesperson for Gloucester City Council said: “We recognise it has been extremely difficult for leisure centres across the country and we understand the pressures that the trust has faced.

“We have worked with Aspire to try to support them with their financial challenges and reduce costs as well as committing to ongoing financial support.

“We are disappointed that Aspire did not feel it was able to continue beyond September and understand that this was a difficult decision.

“We are aware of the impact that this will have on staff and the people who use these facilities, and we’re doing everything we can to find another provider to secure the service’s long-term future.”

An Aspire spokesperson said: "We have now taken the incredibly difficult decision to wind up the charity and to go into liquidation as we believe we are no longer able to operate legally in the way that we would wish," the trustees added.

"As a registered charity, trustees have a legal duty to only trade if council funding is assured and risk is controlled.

"We'd like to thank our staff who have consistently gone above and beyond, as well as our loyal customers who have supported us throughout the last 15 years."

It is understood the trust did not believe it would be able to continue to operate even with significant additional council support.

Financial pressures caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the more recent stark rise in utility costs and general inflation have left it struggling to continue operations.