Gym that cost taxpayer £357 per visit to be closed
Councillors will consider the future of the building in which the gym and pool are located next week
- Published
A gym in a West Yorkshire town which costs the taxpayer more than £350 per visit to subsidise is to be closed.
Bingley Gym is located in the same building near Myrtle Park as Bingley Pool, which was closed in 2020.
Bradford Council, which operates the facility, has revealed it plans to close the gym as part of “investigatory work” into the pool’s future.
In the 2022-23 financial year, the gym was used just 860 times and while it brought in £58,000, it cost £365,000 to keep open and maintain, recent figures showed.
That meant the facility was subsidised with £307,000 of taxpayers' money during that period – a subsidy working out at £357 per visit.
Plans to close the gym are revealed in a report to be considered by Bradford councillors next week which looks at proposals to re-open the pool, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
'Exceptionally high cost'
In March, the government announced it would help Bradford Council to “revitalise” Bingley town centre by awarding it £14.5m in Levelling Up funding.
The bid would see the pool re-opened with “a remodelled swimming pool, gym and studio facilities, along with a new cafe”.
The town's Market Square would also be improved.
The report going to the council's executive next Tuesday reveals that the authority would need to identify additional cash for the scheme to be fully funded.
Referring to the need to close the gym, the report says: “For the Levelling Up Fund project to maintain the possibility of proceeding, it now requires a detailed design and cost analysis.
“This requires intrusive investigations and surveys to be conducted inside and outside the building before a final decision can be made regarding the future of the pool and gym facilities."
As a result, the building - including the gym - would need to be closed "with immediate effect" to enable investigatory work to be carried out, the report says.
The building incorporating the gym and pool needs to be closed so investigatory work can be carried out, a report says
The report adds that operating Bingley Gym was "an exceptionally high cost to the council", and that was "compounded by the fact that usage is extremely low".
The report also discusses the “various options” when it comes to reopening the pool.
Those options include building a six-lane 25m pool costing about £17m, building a four-lane 25m pool costing about £15m or demolishing the pool building and building a new facility at a cost of about £18m.
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