Pollokshaws Sports Centre
Members' business today is motion S1M-275, in the name of Nicola Sturgeon, on Pollokshaws sports centre. The debate lasts 30 minutes and I ask those who are not staying for the debate to leave quietly and quickly.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the importance of accessible sport and leisure facilities in communities around Scotland; notes with regret the decision of Glasgow City Council to close the well-used Pollokshaws Sports Centre and urges reversal of that decision, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to highlight the positive role that community sports facilities can play in combating social exclusion and improving the lives of people in our most deprived communities.
I begin by thanking the Parliamentary Bureau for placing this motion on the business bulletin for debate. It sends a clear message to communities around Scotland that the Parliament is responsive to local needs and concerns.
I welcome representatives of Pollokshaws community council, who are in the public gallery today to hear the debate. Their determination to save a valued local facility is commendable. I thank those of all parties who have given their support to this motion, including the constituency MSP Gordon Jackson.
We have heard a great deal in recent weeks about so-called turf wars between constituency MSPs and regional MSPs. I hope that Gordon and I have demonstrated the potential for all MSPs, even those like Gordon and I, who were opponents in a hard fought election, to work together in the interests of the people who sent us here.
For people who do not know the area, I should say that Pollokshaws is a distinct community on the south side of Glasgow. For historical reasons that I will not go into just now, people who live there are referred to as the queer folk. Pollokshaws sports centre is a long-established facility that houses a swimming pool, dry sports facilities and a launderette. The sports centre is extremely well used by people of all ages who live in and around Pollokshaws.
The swimming pool, in particular, is a favourite for everyone in the community. Many elderly people use it for pleasure and when they are recovering from operations such as a hip replacement and have been advised to swim as part of the recovery process. Most local children learn to swim in the sports centre's swimming pool. However, in spite of all that, the City of Glasgow Council has decided to close the sports centre as part of its review of sports facilities in the city.
The council's justification for the closure is threefold. First, it says that Pollokshaws sports centre is housed in an old building that is in need of refurbishment and that it would cost too much to bring it up to the required standard. Various figures have been bandied about—from £1 million to £5 million—but at no time has there been any detailed explanation of the work that needs to be done. In fact, the council document that confirmed the closure of the sports centre says that a saving of £400,000 per year is the reason for the closure. It does not require additional money that needs to be spent. All that leads to the understandable suspicion among locals that the cost factor is being greatly exaggerated to give the council an excuse to close a well-used local facility.
The council's second justification for closure is that people in Pollokshaws will be able to use the new sports facilities in Glasgow—the new sports centre in Pollok and the soon to be opened centre in the Gorbals. People who know anything about the south side of Glasgow will know that to offer elderly people and families the opportunity to use alternative facilities in Pollok or the Gorbals is little better than offering them alternative facilities on the other side of the city. It takes two bus journeys to travel from Pollokshaws to either Pollok or the Gorbals. In its strategy for sports facilities in Glasgow, the council refers to the importance of low-cost and affordable access to swimming pools, but a parent with two kids would have to shell out more than a fiver just to get to and from either of the alternative facilities. Those facilities do not provide a real alternative to elderly people who would find the bus journeys difficult.
The third justification the council gives is that the decision to close Pollokshaws is the result of a wide-ranging consultation process. I am not sure whom the city council consulted, but it strikes me that in the whole process, it managed to overlook the views of the 4,000 or so people who have signed a petition protesting against the closure, the 600 people who wrote directly to the council, the local councillor and the Glasgow MSPs from all parties. Only the city council favours closure and it is about time it started to listen to those in Glasgow and Pollokshaws who pay their council tax.
Pollokshaws is an area of considerable deprivation in a city with horrific health problems— recently we saw Glasgow's dreadful health statistics. Over the past few years, Pollokshaws has only lost facilities. The irony is that local people are not asking for anything new—they are
simply asking to hold on to the one remaining community facility. That is not unreasonable.
The Executive has commendably pledged to combat social exclusion. Accessible sports facilities can play a huge role in that. In a recent press statement, Rhona Brankin said that sport is an important tool in the fight against social exclusion.
I am aware that the decision rests ultimately not with the Parliament but with the local council, but by debating the matter today we can send a message of support to all the people in Pollokshaws—all those in the public gallery today, and the thousands more who are fighting to protect and sustain their local community.
Seven members have asked to speak, so the shorter the speeches—which should be under three minutes—the more members will be called.
I am happy to support Nicola's motion, and I will not simply rehearse the arguments that she has just given.
For the people of Pollokshaws, this issue goes wider than the baths. They feel very badly let down. They write to me—and, no doubt, to others—about their sense of betrayal and about the fact that an area is going into decline and nothing very much is being done about it.
I have campaigned for the sports centre and written to the council about the general decline in the area. I have had a number of responses, but— thankfully, perhaps—I do not have time to go into all of them. I might paraphrase one response in this way: things are not quite as bad as they are made out to be. The council says that the area is not especially badly served, but that there are some worrying signs.
That is not my impression of the area. In the arcade in Shawbridge Street, I find empty shops and an area that I can describe only as increasingly dilapidated. People in the area feel that it is becoming a dumping ground, although Glasgow City Council will deny that. A council report talks of a huge increase in drug-taking; it talks of the high rate of referral and of not having the resources to deal with it. Crime is up. There are no facilities: tennis courts, gone; bowling green, gone; and now we are told that the sports centre, the baths and the laundrette are to go too. The local people are told to take two buses to the Gorbals; as Nicola says, we might as well tell them to go to the other side of the city.
In fairness, a lot of the reports that we have received make interesting reading. But what will happen tomorrow? Will the library go? I am told that it will not, but another council report—"Council Services and Investment in Pollokshaws"—says that the future of the swimming pool and the library is limited. The conclusion of that report talks of an area "at risk", and of an area
"requiring perhaps relatively modest additional investment to maintain certain provisions."
That is good—it suggests that it will not take much to make things better—but then I read in the next sentence that it is
"difficult to identify the necessary resources to undertake identified work."
In other words, it will not take much to make things better but tough, the money required is apparently not to be made available. That is the response and I can understand why the people of Pollokshaws feel badly let down.
Another response suggests that members of the Scottish Parliament might be better advised to mind their own business and not get involved in the business of the council. In my opinion, this is our business. I understand that the council will make the final decision, but our business is not just to come here and to legislate, but to represent the people who elect us.
I know that this is a difficult issue and I understand the arguments that we will hear from Rhona Brankin about best value, financial constraints and new for old, but the people of the area are asking just one question—what are we getting? We are being told what we are losing, but what are we getting?
The answer, so far, is nothing. Until that question is answered, we are entitled to say, "Don't shut down this last facility."
I am grateful to Nicola Sturgeon for the opportunity to participate in this debate, which highlights a number of important issues.
The first issue is the effect that the loss of this amenity will have on the local area. Nicola has articulated very well the arguments that should have been advanced earlier at city council level. However, the major issue is the attitude that seems to exist concerning facilities that should be offered to communities generally.
Several former Glasgow city councillors are present at this debate and they will remember that the word "culture" used to make the eyes of even the most hard-headed council members glaze over. It has to be realised and appreciated that culture is an all-embracing word, which can mean sport and physical recreation. For the people of
Pollokshaws, many of whom will have considerable and wide cultural interests, the present centre provides a sporting facility that is much in demand by both young and older people. As Nicola said, some of those older people need the facility to recover from surgery.
We have to consider this issue in the broadest sense. I hope that the minister will address the point that culture must be a much more widely embracing concept than it is at present. One man's culture is another man's sport, but they are basically the same thing. People are entitled to have a recreational facility in which they can enjoy their free hours in team sports and other such activities that can promote a community's spirit.
Although I want to associate myself with Nicola's opening comments, I want to make one correction for the record. Nicola said that the residents of Pollokshaws are being referred to the new sports centres in Pollok and the Gorbals. Pollok does not have a sports centre and no such facility is in the pipeline, which is a disgrace. Pollokshaws residents have been referred to the sports centre at Bellahouston, where a swimming pool is currently being built.
Anyone who knows about getting from Pollokshaws to Bellahouston will know how inconvenient that journey will be, particularly for residents in the high-rise flats surrounding Pollokshaws swimming pool, compared with the current ease of access to existing facilities. They will realise that the idea behind going to the Gorbals or Bellahouston is simply spin. The number of people who will make the journey to those facilities will be nowhere near the number who use Pollokshaws. The Labour council should be ashamed of its decision to close those facilities.
I am often accused of being overly political. I do not want to disappoint people. Although I welcome Gordon's support in the campaign to keep the facility open, I remind him that when his report was submitted to Glasgow City Council's culture and leisure services committee, which I attended as a city councillor, I moved a motion of opposition to the closure on the basis that it would remove a very important amenity for the people of Pollokshaws. Although the SNP councillor, John Mason, seconded that motion, not one of the 30 or so Labour councillors present supported it. They should be ashamed.
What we have here is death by a thousand cuts. Govan pool had a pool and a laundry and was well used by the local community, but it was closed a year and a half ago, despite a very vociferous and organised local campaign. Pollokshaws pool has a very important proper pool—not a fun pool—that many elderly people use and another pool where people can learn to swim. I learned to swim there myself, because we used to be fed to that pool from Lourdes secondary school. The removal of this facility will be a disaster for the community.
Two days after the culture and leisure services committee's decision, I was asked by three individuals from the sport and leisure industry to facilitate a meeting with the director of culture and leisure. They were interested in taking on that facility because they thought that, although they could not afford to run the pool, the sports centre was a viable project. If three individuals think it is viable, it should be viable for Glasgow City Council.
I associate myself with all the comments that have been made so far. It is a little ironic that in the year of the setting up of the Scottish Parliament, with the extra emphasis on communities that has come with the renaissance of Scotland's national life and after the reports of the past week about the east- west divide, the north-south divide, and the divides within Glasgow, we are debating the closure of a well used community facility.
I gained a little experience of the closure of community facilities during my time on the council. It is an awful lot easier to close facilities—taking away the associated clubs and other various uses—than it is to reopen them. Tommy Sheridan is right to talk about death by a thousand cuts— the closure will affect much more than just the facility itself.
Glasgow has the merchant city and the second largest shopping facilities in Britain and—in stark contrast—a high proportion of deprived communities. The health perspective has been touched on. The infant mortality rate in Glasgow Govan is 86.1 per 100,000—almost treble the rate in a typical south of England constituency. A large number of people in the constituency, children in particular, live in poverty.
It is appropriate that the Parliament should debate this issue. The council will make the ultimate decision, but it operates within a financial regime set out by this Parliament, which itself operates within the block laid down by the Westminster Parliament.
I reiterate a point made repeatedly by my colleague, Donald Gorrie. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has a growing nest egg—in the national insurance fund and in the surpluses that are being kept in London—that could and should be used to support community initiatives and facilities such as the one in Pollokshaws. The
money should trickle down, so that we can ensure that local communities in Glasgow have the support of all levels of government to enable them to survive.
I hope that the council will reconsider its decision and that even at this late stage there is a chance that it will change its mind.
In case folk are wondering why the expression "queer folk" is used about the people of Pollokshaws, it is because the area has a very interesting history. It was founded as a Huguenot village in the 18th century. I understand that French was spoken there until the early 19th century.
It still is.
Indeed.
John Maclean stayed there too.
That is right.
The social structure of Pollokshaws is such that a third of the population is retired, which is considerably higher than the Glasgow average. More than 60 per cent of people in Pollokshaws have no access to a car and rely on public transport. As others have said, it would be extremely difficult to travel to the sports centres at Bellahouston or Gorbals due to the routes that would have to be taken.
Pollokshaws is one of the poorer areas in the Glasgow Govan constituency, which has the eighth worst health record in the United Kingdom. If it were not for the fact that the area is in Glasgow, it would be a social inclusion area. That is a point that must be taken on board.
Bailie Liz Cameron, who I know very well and who is convener of culture and leisure services at Glasgow City Council, sent a letter to Nicola Sturgeon on 2 December. In her letter, Bailie Cameron mentioned that other facilities are available in the ward, such as the Burrell museum, Pollok House and the Tramway theatre. However, those facilities are not particularly close to Pollokshaws, especially for elderly people who would have to walk to them, as there are no reasonable bus routes. In any case, such facilities do not necessarily appeal to the people who live in the area.
Bailie Cameron says:
"if MSPs like yourself could persuade the Scottish Executive to fund . . . the Capital Spend on . . . Pollokshaws Pool then it might be a different story."
She is basically appealing to us and the Scottish
Executive to make resources available to Glasgow City Council so that it does not have to close the facility. The council talks about new for old but, in my seven years' experience as a Glasgow councillor, it is often nowt for old. When facilities close, they rarely reopen.
Consultation has been mentioned. The council's deputy director of culture and leisure services wrote to the community council on 16 August, inviting it to a meeting on 20 August. I do not think that that is time enough to consult and to let the community attend a vital meeting on the future of such an important facility. I hope that we have all- party consent and Executive support for Glasgow City Council to maintain it.
I would like to focus on one issue that has already been mentioned: the lack of consultation by Glasgow City Council. While council members insist that they have consulted widely, it is a fact that the local community council has had only one meeting with them. There has been neither a public meeting nor direct consultation with those who will be affected by the council's decision. That is despite a petition with 4,000 signatures and 600 letters sent directly to the council.
Why has Glasgow City Council refused properly to consult the people of Pollokshaws? How can it justify to local people the fact that it is closing the only facility of its kind in the area? How can it justify the fact that, although it readily bandies about projected refurbishment costs, no actual assessment of what work needs done has taken place, let alone been costed?
Glasgow City Council has refused properly to consult the people of Pollokshaws because those in control of the council have created a culture of arrogance—a belief that they know best and that their decisions are beyond reproach. Witness the complete lack of consultation with city tenants over the housing stock transfer. This is more of the same.
Glasgow City Council should note that it does not necessarily know best. It should try listening to those most directly affected by the decisions that it takes. It could start by listening to the people of Pollokshaws and reverse the decision to close Pollokshaws sports centre.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to wind up this debate on the provision of sport and leisure facilities in Scotland and particularly in Pollokshaws.
I would like to say at the outset that, as part of its philosophy of sport for all, the Scottish Executive wants a wide range of sport and leisure facilities and opportunities to be made available to people in all parts of Scotland. Significant progress has been, and continues to be, made.
Local authorities have a statutory duty, under section 14 of the Local Government and Planning (Scotland) Act 1982, to ensure adequate provision of facilities for recreational and sporting activities for the inhabitants of their area. Glasgow City Council, through its sport for life for you strategy, has made a major commitment to developing a network of new, state-of-the-art facilities. To achieve that, it has been necessary in some cases to adopt a policy of closure and replacement to address problems of poorer quality, more outdated facilities and, in some cases, inappropriate locations.
The policy has been subject to a rigorous and planned process that has drawn on sportscotland's facilities planning model. Glasgow has been responsible in its approach to facilities provision. As it has added new, quality facilities, it has not sought to keep open poorer quality provision that, in some cases, has outlived its usefulness.
The sport for life for you strategy reflects the national strategy for sport in Scotland, "sport 21: nothing left to chance". Since the launch of its strategy, Glasgow has opened modern, accessible, high-quality facilities at Scotstoun, Tollcross Park, Springburn and Gorbals, with another due to open at Bellahouston park next year.
Lottery sports fund spending on facilities in Glasgow amounts to—
Will the deputy minister take an intervention?
Sorry, I think I know what the intervention is.
The lottery sports fund spending amounts to £21million for project costs with a total value of £52 million.
Will the deputy minister give way?
Will the deputy minister take an intervention?
No thanks.
The matter of Pollokshaws sports centre was addressed as part of a wider review that involved the closure of facilities because of their low usage levels, poor physical condition, age and proximity to recent and proposed developments.
Sportscotland's facilities planning model was used to assess an analysis of pool provision and indicated that Pollokshaws should be closed when the new facilities at Gorbals and Bellahouston open in 2000. This assessment was based on supply, population, usage, present condition and accessibility.
Will the minister take one intervention?
No, thank you.
A fabric survey of Pollokshaws in August 1997 indicated a requirement to spend a minimum of £265,000 on roof and other essential repairs. That figure did not include any costs related to the full structural survey that was required, nor did it take any account of the replacement of obsolete and inefficient pool plant.
Will the minister give way?
No thank you, Tommy—it is not worth the bother. [Interruption.]
Presiding Officer, I would prefer not to be interrupted constantly by members shouting out.
I do not find the remarks too intrusive, minister. Please continue.
It was estimated that keeping the facility open for another few years might require capital expenditure of up to £1 million. A total refurbishment that might require more than £2 million was not thought to be an effective investment. The conclusion drawn from that survey was that the facility was nearly at the end of its useful life.
The impact of the closure must be balanced against the overall provision of facilities at Govanhill, Castlemilk, Pollok, Bellahouston and Gorbals, giving the south side of Glasgow some of the best provision in Scotland.
Will the minister give way?
No, thank you.
The provision of these facilities and others has seen almost £54 million allocated to sports centres in some of the most run-down areas of Glasgow.
Sport 21 develops a vision of a new sporting environment in Scotland, in which access to quality facilities is convenient and affordable to all, in which Scotland's disadvantaged groups have equal and open access to sport and in which rural and remote communities are no longer isolated from mainstream Scottish sport.
As one of its four key challenges, sport 21 recommends that local authorities should publish a strategic plan for sport and recreation that draws on the resources and efforts of all council services including leisure, education, planning, social work, economic development and other departments, as
appropriate. I urge local authorities that have not yet done so to respond positively to that challenge.
Sportscotland's lottery sports fund began distributing funds in January 1995 and has made 525 awards under its capital programme up to 1 December this year. The awards total almost £85 million—funding that has stimulated an overall expenditure programme of some £246 million on sports facilities in Scotland.
Levelling the playing field, the new lottery strategy, is placing even greater emphasis on local neighbourhood provision by opening up school facilities for use by local communities. Within that strategy policy, sportscotland will give priority to projects located in deprived communities and in areas of special need.
The current sport 21 review process is also important with regard to the issue of facilities and their impact on deprived communities.
One last time—will the minister give way?
No thank you, Nicola.
The review is being driven forward by five forums, two of which have a particular focus on this area: the facilities for sport and the sport and social inclusion forums. We recognise the link between sport and social inclusion.
In partnership with sportscotland, the Scottish Executive is conducting research on the role that sport plays in regenerating deprived areas. The findings of that research will be published early next year and we hope that it will provide examples of good practice that can be disseminated to all relevant interests in this field.
Sport in Scotland has made tremendous progress in recent years. Although we have a long way to go, participation rates are higher than 25 years ago, facilities are far more widespread and accessible, coaching is more widely available and is of a higher standard and the governing bodies of sport are more open and responsive.
We continue to need to make progress in sport, but the Executive firmly supports the key role that sport plays in social inclusion.
Meeting closed at 17:34.