School Sport Facilities: Reopening

Debate between Ben Bradley and Robert Goodwill

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We all know about the recent economic challenges around long-term planning, but the sooner we can have longer-term security around staffing the better. I would make the same point about the Department of Health and Social Care funding stream for school games organisers. They are in the same boat; if the funding is not confirmed soon, they will have to lay people off and then start again. The cost of that is unnecessary and burdensome for schools.

This evening I want to focus on school facilities, however. One way to increase access to sports facilities across the country is by ensuring that schools are able to open their sports facilities for public use. We are investing in new sports centres, and lots of levelling-up funds and other funds have recently come forward for new facilities, including Warsop leisure and health centre in my constituency. That is really positive, and means that, thanks to this Government, we will finally replace the old, dilapidated leisure centre that the Mansfield independent-led council closed around four years ago. That is great; I have campaigned on it and have been keen to secure it, and I am really pleased we are going to be able to do it this year. But when I look across the road from the leisure centre, I see a school sports field with football pitches, a multi-use games area, a basketball court, tennis courts and school sports facilities that are already there. It is fortunate that in Warsop some of them—not all—are open to the wider community, but when I first came to Parliament five years ago I was shocked to find that the general public were not able to access 45% of the sports facilities in state-funded schools; almost half provide no public access at all.

[Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that for some of the indoor facilities, particularly swimming pools but also gyms, the problem might be that the exorbitant cost of heating at present prevents the school from doing something, because it will cost them money even if they charge for use of their facilities?

[Ben Bradley]

I was not planning to go through everything we discussed in the previous sports debate, but we talked at length about that issue, and my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the cost of running sports facilities, in particular swimming pools, is hugely challenging at present. The business energy support does not tackle that; it does not specifically help or offer that support for leisure facilities, and I have asked Ministers to look at that. I know my right hon. Friend has spoken about that, too. It would be great to see support come forward for such facilities, making them more accessible and affordable.

In light of that, the proportion of facilities that the public cannot access will be even higher than 45% now. I can think of multiple large secondary schools even in my constituency that have recently removed that access to sports facilities for communities because of additional costs post-covid; the commercial viability of running centres reduced because customers disappeared during covid, making them a drain on school budgets.

To give an example, Manor Academy in Mansfield Woodhouse closed its sports centre for community use post-covid. That is understandable; I am not going to point fingers at the school, because I understand why it feels that it should direct its funds towards the academics and the students, and that it is not its job to subsidise community leisure provision—it was losing money on it. I sympathise with that, therefore, and I am not here to assign blame, but we are 18 months on now, and still multiple football pitches, a hockey pitch—the only hockey pitch in Mansfield—an indoor sports hall and other facilities remain inaccessible.

As that hockey pitch remains closed, the hockey club remains effectively homeless. I have been trying to broker a solution between councils, the academy trust and North Notts Hockey Club, but it has been a real slog and has taken 18 months now. I think we are getting there, and I am hopeful that when we meet again in a few weeks we will have a solution to take forward, but, as I will discuss, the challenges and bureaucracy around trying to pull that together have been very difficult, and it should not be so hard when on the surface all partners involved want to make that happen.