City's flagship leisure centre plan under threat

Bradford Council needs to save £1.3m on sports and leisure facilities over the next two years

A flagship government-backed regeneration project in Bradford is under threat as the council tries to avoid effective bankruptcy.

Fresh doubts over the viability of the £35m Squire Lane leisure, community and enterprise centre have emerged in a new report to be presented to council decisionmakers.

The authority is also planning cuts to library services.

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, of Bradford Council, said they were having to make "extremely difficult decisions".

Local authority leaders have already made a new plea for even more government financial help to avoid effective bankruptcy.

The under-strain authority is now asking for a total of £80m in this financial year, as well as £140m for 2024/25, to plug a growing black hole in its budget.

The council had planned to create the health and wellbeing hub near Bradford Royal Infirmary, aiming to improve outcomes in a city with huge pockets of inequality.

The authority has since set out plans to save £1.3m on running its sports and leisure facilities over the next two years and has warned it will have to close some facilities.

A report going to the council's decision-making executive next week said the authority was carrying out a wholesale review of all sports and leisure services.

It said the review would "also consider any new facilities that have not been commissioned at the current time e.g. Squire Lane Sports Facilities".

Scaled back

The Squire Lane scheme had already been beset with delays, uncertainty and enforced scaling back.

Plans to build the new health hub were first mooted almost a decade ago, as part of a major shake-up of the district’s swimming pool offer.

In 2021 the government pledged £20m in Levelling Up funding towards the scheme.

But progress was slow, and the estimated costs spiralled to £48m.

The Bradford District Care Trust, a partner in the plans, also pulled out citing inability to keep up with the growing demands of the scheme.

The entire project was scaled back to half its envisaged size, and a reduced £35m cost estimate.

'Valued services'

Bradford Council has also again earmarked cuts in library services, after a period during which all but 10 public libraries across the district became partly or fully-run by volunteers.

Ms Ferriby, executive member for healthy people and places, said: "Bradford Council is already running these services at a low cost, they have to be because of our low council tax base.

"But due to continued significant increases in Children’s and Adult Social Care demand and cost pressures, combined with ongoing national austerity we must make more savings.

"We are having to look at all the services we provide and make extremely difficult decisions.

"We value all these services and know residents do too."

A public consultation on the cost-cutting budget proposals continues until February 17.

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