North Solihull Sports Centre deal announced

A NEW deal has been struck to manage North Solihull Sports Centre.
Solihull Council has this week announced that it has signed a 10-year agreement with leisure management company Everyone Active, taking effect on June 1.
The deal, which also covers the running of Tudor Grange Leisure Centre, is set to save the council around £1.4million a year.
It has been confirmed that all existing staff at both facilities will be retained under the new arrangement.
The partnership comes after Solihull Council chose to buy out the Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract it had entered into 12 years ago, under which the centres were run by Parkwood Leisure.
Speaking this week, Coun Robert Hulland, cabinet member for resources and delivering value, said the local authority didn't have any criticism of the previous operator but there were concerns that the annual cost was rising.
He said that when the previous deal was hammered out in 2006, councils were quite limited in their options, but he believed that new legislation had allowed greater flexibility.
Around two years of discussions have taken place and Solihull spoke with Portsmouth City Council who had previously adopted a similar, although not identical, model.
"Not only has this saved the council around £1.4 million per annum, but Everyone Active is committed to investing £1 million in their first year with us so we are saving money and increasing our leisure offer to residents," said Coun Hulland.
Coun James Burn (Green, Chelmsley Wood) said that his group would be watching to see how the new arrangements worked in practice.
He said that there was an argument that instead of "contracting out" the day-to-day management of services, the council could consider opportunities for doing it themselves.