Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-207)
MS BRIGID
SIMMONDS
8 MAY 2006
Q200 John Pugh: If I was a director
of leisure in a local authority and I was looking at the local
authority getting section 106 agreement, planning gain supplement
and so on, I would be seeing that as an opportunity to invest
further in leisure facilities within the community, for which
wherever you go there is a demand. The only people who I think
would be troubled by the prospect of a planning gain supplement
would be big commercial leisure parks who are looking at the possibility
of an additional commercial cost which would reduce their profit
margins. Could I ask you how many of your members operate in the
not-for-profit sector?
Ms Simmonds: We have all the major
operators of local authority sports facilities which are operated
by the private sector. If you look at local authority facilities,
they are either operated by a trust or provided in-house or by
the private sector. All those who operate in the private sector
are members, as are most of the large sport health and fitness
clubs.
Q201 John Pugh: You can see that
they might react differently to the prospect?
Ms Simmonds: Yes, I can. One of
the concerns I would express is there are now very few directors
of leisure within local authorities, many have amalgamated them
and they have gone into bigger departments and that expertise
is fast disappearing. I will give you the example of Cambridge
Parkside where the director of leisure put out a brief for the
development of a new swimming pool, which eventually was built
but first time around the planning department said, "There
is no chance you are going to get planning permission to build
this on that site". That does happen. There is not that co-ordination
internally within local authorities between planners, who are
very hard-pressed to do the job they want to do anyway, in terms
of planning expertise and development planning expertise. That
co-ordination does not exist.
Q202 John Pugh: In terms of your
fears, have you factored in that some obligations under section
106 will disappear as other possibilities for charging appear
on the horizon?
Ms Simmonds: Yes.
Q203 John Pugh: Have you factored
that in?
Ms Simmonds: We have. That was
my example of the Harrods Repository and the towpath. Would improvements
to a towpath used by hundreds of thousands of people be the sort
of thing that planning gain supplement money would be used for?
I think there is a great danger that it would not and yet the
developers of that housing site would equally say, "That
is not immediately necessary to the success of this site in infrastructure
terms, therefore we are not providing the funding".
Q204 John Pugh: Assuming that the
new regime is inevitable, what level of planning gain supplement
could be sustained by organisations in your sector, or does it
vary depending upon the organisation?
Ms Simmonds: I think it varies.
As you rightly say, the commercial end of the market may be able
to sustain a planning gain supplement. It is the not-for-profit
end particularly within the membership of the CCPR that I would
be very concerned about. Sports clubs which are meant to be making
that link and keeping people healthy and fit over a period of
years is the area where we would concerned.
Q205 John Pugh: Your general perception
is that the burden will be greater across the industry, as it
were?
Ms Simmonds: No. I think my general
perception is the concern that you are not going to be funding
the sorts of sports and leisure facilities to make people active
in the future. I would still maintain that even if they are provided
by the private sector, which of course then has no revenue impact
on the public purse, they still deserve special—
Q206 John Pugh: You are not saying
you expect the burden to grow, you are saying the nature of the
new system will encourage local authorities to do different things?
Ms Simmonds: Yes.
Q207 Mr Betts: Just for clarification:
you have given evidence on behalf of BSL but could you say this
afternoon whether you also represent the views of Tourism UK and
CCPR?
Ms Simmonds: They cover both the
Tourism Alliance and CCPR. Yes, I have taken into account all
of those views and they have all made submissions to this inquiry.
Mr Betts: Thank you very much for that.
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