Fife Leisure centres hit hard by covid restrictions

Councillors on Fife’s community and housing services sub committee met on Thursday to consider the arm’s-length organisation’s annual report for 2020/21 and heard, as expected, that COVID had a massive impact on sports and leisure facilities.

Restrictions meant centres were only open to the public for 15 weeks of the year and that saw a significant loss in customer income, with financial results for the year to March 31, 2021, showing an overall loss of £813,307.

However, additional funding from Fife Council of £2.6 million and £3.1 million from the Coronavirus Job Retention Fund allowed the Trust to remain sustainable during the pandemic period and work to reshape its business to operate post-pandemic.

With society opening up again, Emma Walker, Fife Sports and Leisure Trust chief executive, is optimistic about the future, but acknowledged it is difficult to accurate predict the rate of recovery.

“This is a very challenging time for the organisation, particularly due to the impact of prolonged closures and restrictions, and will require a substantial amount of forward planning to counter the loss of public confidence and an initial reduction in opening hours of facilities to minimise the additional funding required to support the Trust during the recovery period,” she explained.

“Due to the length of time of the pandemic impact, the trust has to contend with recovery of customer attendances aligned not just to public confidence in the Trust’s services but also to persuade customers to return who had resorted to other methods of exercise during lock down.

“The change in customer behaviour coupled with the challenges highlighted make the funding from Fife Council critical during the recovery period to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Trust.”

In the course of a normal year, almost 80% of the Trust’s funding is generated income from paying customers and an element of grant funding.

With that in mind, Ms Walker confirmed the Trust is working closely with Fife Council to agree a more sustainable funding model going forward.

Capital investment is continuing as planned, with £1 million committed for work at the Beacon Leisure Centre in Burntisland and money spent on works to Carnegie Leisure Centre’s training pool.