South Holland district councillors share concerns about drop in use of Spalding’s Castle Sports Complex and The Peele Leisure Centre in Long Sutton

A ‘worrying trend’ was exposed in new data showing a reduction in the use of the district-owned leisure facilities – including a popular town bowls club.

South Holland District Council has seen a fall in the usage of the Castle Sports Complex and Peele Leisure Centre. The trend is shown in figures for April compared to the last year (the latest available numbers).

Senior councillors have now called for the contractors Parkwood to promote the facilities better.

A report presented to last week’s Performance Monitoring Panel showed the bowls club at the Castle received 2,932 visits in April 2022 but this fell to 999 in April this year.

Committee chairman Coun Bryan Alcock said there had been a ‘tremendous drop-off in usage” and had been told some of the problems were down to illness.

Speaking at last Wednesday’s meeting, Coun Alcock said: “From my perspective and some members’ perspective, it is a very worrying trend. Somewhere along the line we need to get to grips with this. Whether something is wrong with the relationship or altered, the club is struggling or whatever it is, someone needs to give them some assistance.

“It is a fantastic facility and over the years has hosted national championships and it seems as though it is not performing as it used to. It showed resilience to come back after covid.

“We keep blaming covid but we are a hell of a long way from it. There are one or two items where they, Parkwood, need to justify why they are not doing something about it.”

Coun Alcock also asked for more up-to-date information.

Figures before the committee showed the Castle pool received 16,950 visits in April 2022 but only 15,494 this April.

The ‘dry side’ had 12,087 visits in April 2022 but had only 9,638 for the same month this year. The gym had 3,982 visits this April compared with 4,551 12 months before. The classes had 2,028 visits in April 2022 while this year’s attendance for that month was 1,683.

The Peele Leisure Centre’s attendance for April last year was 3,254 compared to 3,084 this year.

Gym usage dropped from 1,291 visits in April 2022 to 960 but the exercise class attendance has slightly risen to 245 visits this year compared to 203 the year before.

Calls were made in the meeting to increase promotion of the facility around Long Sutton.

Committee vice-chairman Michael Booth said: “We did say that at the last meeting that it was important to promote the Peele.

“I have not seen any promotional material for the Peele or anything like that. I think it is not good, we have got to keep talking about it and we have got to encourage people to go.

“We have got to get some promotion going and get people going and not keep coming back here and talking about it.”

Coun Chris Brewis highlighted that King’s Lynn and Wisbech both had good leisure facilties. He said: “I think that a bit of investment in Long Sutton Peele facility would be very welcome.

“If we want to manage to improve things there substantially and get some good publicity, we could do ourselves a lot of good.

“I think there is some urgency go get on with that.”

Coun Laura Eldridge looked at the Peele’s Facebook page and found nothing had been posted since June 11. She said: “Social media is a big thing for younger people - surely they should be promoting it on there.”