Warrington Council agrees plan to take back leisure services

LiveWire currently runs a number of neighbourhood hubs, including one at Great Sankey

Bringing a borough's leisure services back under council control will give the best opportunity to safeguard them, the authority's leader has said.

Warrington Council's cabinet has backed plans to run services in-house, after operator LiveWire was unable to keep running them without subsidies.

Council leader Russ Bowden said he felt it was the "right time" to insource library and leisure facilities.

The authority will take over control by summer 2024.

LiveWire was set up by the council as a community interest company in 2012 to manage leisure, library and some wellbeing services in the borough.

The company has faced issues following the pandemic and increases in energy and staffing costs.

The council agreed to provide a grant to support the services in January, but following advice from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), it said there was "no lawful way" to provide financial assistance for LiveWire in its present form.

Speaking after the cabinet meeting, Mr Bowden said it had been an "incredibly challenging time" for the firm.

He said the decision to take it back under council control gave "the best chance of safeguarding those services" and protecting "the jobs of those people who work for LiveWire".

He said the council still needed to work out the full costs and go through formal processes such as arranging for staff to be transferred.

However, he said something had to be done, as it was currently "costing the council millions extra on top of the management fees to keep those services running".

"I'm absolutely confident that the decision we've made is the right one," he added.

The transfer is expected to be completed by June 2024.