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Aug 2021

Last Updated: 03/08/2021

Staffing a major challenge says new Harrogate leisure company boss

by Tamsin O'Brien

| 03 Aug, 2021

The district's new council run leisure company Brimhams Active faces short staffing shortages and a more existential threat in the longer term. The new MD Mark Tweedie talks to the Local Demcracy Reporting Service.

The new manager of the council-controlled company that has taken over leisure centres in the Harrogate district says staffing is a challenge.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mark Tweedie, the company’s new managing director, said although a number of these vacant roles would be filled in the coming weeks, staffing was still one of the most immediate challenges it faced.

He said:

“We have got a recruitment issue and that is something which is consistent right across the country.

“In leisure and hospitality, where people have been hit hard by lockdown closures and uncertainties around jobs, many people have got off and tried new jobs.

“We have got to convince people there are still strong careers in the leisure industry and attract people to come back.”

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The company also faces a longer term challenge. Under local government reorganisation, all council services will come under the control of a new unitary authority serving the whole of North Yorkshire by April 2023 when the current two-tier system will be scrapped.

Like Harrogate, some other councils including Selby and Scarborough already have a system of leisure services being run by external companies.

But ultimately it will be for the new North Yorkshire council to decide whether these arrangements should continue beyond 2023 or if a county-wide approach is to be taken.

If all leisure services are brought in-house under the new authority, the road ahead for Brimhams Active will be an uncertain one. it could mean Brimhams Active is scrapped just a few years after launching.

Mr Tweedie said:

“With all these uncertainties on the horizon, all I can do and all I am doing as managing director is thinking how can I make Brimhams the best it can be so whenever any decisions are made we are in the mix.

“We are already collaborating with all of the other leisure operators around the region to look where we can form partnerships and work together.

“All we want to do is make sure we are best placed and the council has done that with the local authority controlled company (LACC).

“They have really done what is in the best interests of Harrogate.”

The council has spent less than £300,000 on setting up Brimhams Active which is now running 12 leisure venues in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon and Pateley Bridge.

Some decisions over how services are run will be made exclusively by a board of seven directors made up of councillors and council staff.

This includes councillor Pat Marsh, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who said she was pleased that the launch of the company showed a commitment to keeping services running.

She said:

“Because leisure is not a statutory service and is expensive to deliver, the council could close all facilities or some of them to save money, in these difficult times, as some councils have done.

“At least having a LACC in place means there is commitment to deliver leisure facilities to the people of the district.

“Covid is and has been an issue for everyone. Hopefully now we are able to start to open everything up and with the launch of the LACC we will see a new future for the delivery of leisure service.”

Mr Tweedie added:

“Although we have launched the company, it will not be an instant change which people are going to see within 24 hours. This is a new strategy and website to make a commitment to where we are going.

“There is going to progressive change in the next one to three years to make the service a high performing offering.”

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Staffing a major challenge says new Harrogate leisure company boss

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