Leisure Centres Under Labour: Not Fit for Purpose

10.58.27am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 8th Mar 2007

Users of Streatham Leisure Centre have attacked the way Labour are lettings services die

Lambeth residents are telling us that the borough's crumbling fitness and leisure centres are a joke. Not only that but they're an expensive joke.

Lambeth Labour has massively hiked charges to use Lambeth's leisure centres at a time when these vital community services are in meltdown. Reports coming to us suggest that as Lambeth dithers about a new Leisure contract, staff are leaving in droves, and, worse, facilities are now so poor that people are voting with their feet over suffering such a third-rate service.

We have heard from angry users of Streatham Leisure Centre of unheated changing rooms, lockers without locks, filthy dirty swimming pool with scum and even faeces and sanitary towels in the water. Worse, even children's safety is compromised, as life-guards are not on duty at all times, we were told.

Meanwhile Streatham's eagerly awaited new combined Swimming pool and state-of-the art ice rink now seems further away than ever. A further 9 month delay has been agreed by the Council - so that Summer of 2010 is now the earliest possible date for opening - and user groups are angry at the wall of silence that has descended over the whole project. There are persistent rumours that continuity of ice provision may now be abandoned or that skaters may have to go out of the borough altogether.

Things are no better at Brixton's premier recreation centre which is known throughout the world. Now it is a crumbling mess and has been dubbed the Brixton Wreck. Shut over Christmas and New Year for emergency repairs, users have now been warned to expect a further three month closure. And rumours persist that the Council's preferred new leisure contractor is insisting on millions of pounds being spent on refurbishments before they will take it over.

It would probably be cheaper in the long run to completely rebuild it.

Things are no better in Clapham. Having won the May 2006 local election on a spurious claim that the Lib Dems planned to close the ageing swimming pool, Labour has now ratted on its supporters by announcing that the Clapham Pool will close.

And in the north of the borough - they have no leisure facilities to speak of anyway.

We say enough is enough.

Liberal Democrat national leader Ming Campbell, an Olympic athletic champion himself, has highlighted the health benefits of good sport and leisure facilities. Lambeth is a hugely deprived inner London Borough - youth facilities are especially poor. People generally need sports and leisure facilities to unwind from the stresses and strains of urban living.

Lambeth deserves better than rock bottom services at sky-high prices.