A truce has been called in the political wrangling over the fate of the Oasis and how it can be reopened. A cross-party cabinet member advisory group set up by Conservative leader of the borough council David Renard includes cabinet members as well as Labour group leader Jim Grant. And after it met this week, a council spokesman said members agreed to continue working together to find a resolution. The council owns the land on which the Oasis sits, but the building was let to private company Seven Capital on a 99-year lease. In turn, Seven Capital contracted specialist trust GLL to run the centre, but GLL said it couldn’t make enough of a profit during the November lockdown, and the centre has not reopened.
Labour group leader Jim Grant is hoping to end the Conservatives’ stranglehold and wants Swindonians to learn the lessons of 2020 The leader of Swindon’s Labour opposition hopes the lessons of 2020 will be remembered by people in Swindon – and says the past 12 months have shown the importance of community. Looking forward to the 2021 local elections scheduled for May, councillor Jim Grant first looked back over the last year. He said: “2020 was a year unlike any other I can remember. Yet in the midst of the Covid crisis so many people in Swindon and across the country have worked tirelessly to care for our loved ones, to keep shelves in shops fully stocked and have contributed in a multitude of other ways – I want to pay tribute to them.
There will be an investigation into why the Oasis Leisure Centre closed – and how best to have it re-opened. And it will be conducted by the scrutiny committee after its chairman – Labour councillor Jim Robbins – pulled rank. The iconic North Star venue faces an uncertain future after leisure operator GLL – which leases it from landlord Seven Capital – declared it no longer viable in November. And it looked for a time as though there might be separate and possibly competing probes into the reasons why, with one by the scrutiny committee and another by the resources and corporate overview and scrutiny committee. The latter was called by Conservatives Rahul Tarar and Vinay Manro.
Fears are growing that the government’s £100 million National Leisure Recovery fund is only a small fraction of the £800m thought to be needed to keep leisure centres afloat following the devastating impact of three national lockdowns.
The fund from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport was first announced in October to support arms length leisure providers, but faced delays in getting sign off from Treasury. The deadline for sending through expressions of interest was extended until last Friday, with awards being made on a rolling basis and expected to start coming out next week.
The fund was initially intended to help leisure providers with the costs of reopening their services, but with the latest national lockdown declared this month Sport England, which is administering the fund, has just agreed to expand the scope of what the cash can be spent on to reflect the additional costs of prolonged closures.
THE sorry state of the Oasis Leisure Centre has been revealed in YouTube footage shot by urban explorers. The lagoon pool, Domebusters slides and concert halls which have attracted millions of visitors to Swindon since 1976 lie abandoned and empty after the decision by GLL to shut the facility for good in November. Both the leisure operator and Swindon Borough Council leader David Renard have slammed the YouTubers after the “totally irresponsible and illegal” break-in on January 5, which saw the police called but no action taken. The hour-long video, posted on the Kirbz Vidz channel, one of the two men is heard saying the “door was open” before they enter the North Star site via the Domebusters plant room. This claim is refuted.