Wokingham Borough Council to give leisure centre to secondary school

In June Wokingham Borough Council announced it was considering closing the centre

A leisure centre is to be given to a neighbouring school despite opposition from people who use its facilities.

Wokingham Borough Council decided to hand the St Crispin's Leisure Centre to the Circle Academy Trust which runs St Crispin's secondary school next door.

It said this was necessary to allow the school to expand, as part of council efforts to meet rising demand for school places in the borough.The Circle Academy Trust wants to continue to allow public access to the centre outside of school hours.

Councillor Prue Bray, responsible for schools, said: "We are expanding a number of secondary schools but we do need the places that will be provided at St Crispin's to make sure that we don't have children who don't have somewhere to go to school."

In June, the council announced it was considering closing the centre and giving it to the trust because the number of people using it had fallen since the pandemic.

But 80% of people who took part in a public consultation disagreed or strongly disagreed with proposals to close it.

Users of the centre told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they felt they would lose a valuable piece of their community.

The Circle Academy Trust wants to continue to allow public access to the centre outside of school hours

Squash players feared losing access to the only public courts in the borough.

Councillor Ian Shenton, responsible for leisure, said the council had considered responses to the consultation.

He said: "We've been able to cover off the vast majority of all the community uses.

"The only loss will be daytime use of the squash courts by squash players."

Circle trust chief executive officer Ginny Rhodes said she wanted to continue allowing people to use the centre outside of school hours when she spoke to councillors on 28 November.

But she warned that that the facilities would probably be hired out according to what the school could manage.

And she warned it might be "complicated" to open the centre for longer periods during school holidays.

Follow BBC South on Facebook, X, or Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].