£1.6m to be spent on decarbonising Somerset leisure centres

South Somerset District Council pledged to decarbonise its existing leisure centres as part of a response to climate change, having declared a climate emergency in 2019.

The council allocated funding to pay for these improvements in 2021 and has also received central government grants through the public sector decarbonisation scheme (PSDS).

However, the council has now voted to commit an extra £1.6M to the projects to ensure the work can be completed before the new unitary Somerset Council takes control in April 2023.

Freedom Leisure currently runs several leisure centres on the council’s behalf as part of a 15-year deal which runs to 2036.

This includes the recently-completed Chard Leisure Centre, which opened its doors in November 2021 and has been built to a high environmental standard – meaning no retrofitting is currently needed.

The other three centres, which will need decarbonising, are Wincanton Sports Centre in Wincanton, Goldenstones Leisure Centre and Westlands Sports and Leisure Centre (the latter both being located in Yeovil).

Councillor Sarah Dyke explained the need for further funding at a virtual meeting of the council’s district executive committee on Thursday morning (May 12).

She said: “The PSDS funding is expected to deliver a reduction of 435 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum.

“Wincanton Sports Centre and Goldenstones currently have the highest carbon emissions of any of our properties, so that’s where the PSDS money has been prioritised.

“The scheme is complex and has taken a bit longer than expected – we’ve had to bring in quite a lot of officer resource to implement that. It’s caused a delay to Freedom Leisure taking forward their other centre improvements as a result.”

Wincanton Community Sports Centre

The council committed nearly £6.3M in its capital budget of February 2021 towards decarbonisation projects – of which £2.8M was allocated for projects which fall under the PSDS remit (in the event of grant funding not being available), with the remainder being for other capital projects.

The rising cost of materials, including steel and electrical components, means more than £1.6M of additional funding is needed to complete these projects.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) had provided up to £3,993,000 through the PSDS, which would have reduced the overall amount of borrowing the council would have needed to undertake.

However, the council will only end up being able to use around £3.4M of this grant funding before the June 30 deadline, with the available funding being directed towards the two Yeovil facilities.

Lynda Pincombe, the council’s procurement specialist, said improvements at the Wincanton site remained fully funded (with the additional borrowing) and were being delayed to prevent any disruption to pupils at the neighbouring King Arthur’s Community School.

She said: “The problem with Wincanton is there is a large amount of civil works – digging up the roads, as it were – in order to lay a base for the air source heat pumps there.

“If we were to fully fund that from the PSDS funding, we would have to complete that work before the end of June – because that’s when the grant deadline expires.

“Unless the government is willing to extend that deadline, we have to fund that from capital.

“Where the air source heat are planned to do – the only place they can go – is right next to school classrooms, and we would be doing work during the period when GCSEs are taking place.

“We fully intend to undertake the work, and we’ve got all the funding to do so. It would just have to take place after that GCSE period.”

Councillor Peter Seib said the rise in costs was unfortunate but the work was necessary to achieve long-term benefits for Somerset residents.

He said: “The leisure sector is a difficult one when it comes to climate change. We have a lot of big buildings, we have a lot of heating water – we have all sorts of challenges with the leisure sector.

“This is an enduring need and an enduring public benefit, so I have absolutely no doubt that we have to spent this [money] before or after local government reorganisation. We will get the benefits earlier if we do it now.”

Councillor Mike Best added: “It’s an unfortunate time that we’re now in, that increased costs are going to be very high on the agenda from now on.

“I know in business a company that I’ve dealt with, which would give six months on any quotation, now will only give a week because of the changing cost of materials.

“I think that if we are going to achieve our target of 2030 with carbon neutrality, there is no way we’ll achieve that if we back off projects like this.”

The committee voted unanimously to approve the additional funding for the projects.