We have been notified by Rutland County Council that they will not be renewing the sports centre contract at Catmose College due to the cost this would incur over the next decade. The College was not involved in making this decision and is therefore not able to comment further on it.

We have been contacted by community groups asking if it is possible that the College could take over and offer sports and leisure facilities to the public. We are sympathetic to these requests, but we have not had time to consider if this is possible or practicable as we have only just been informed of the council’s decision.

The funding the College receives is public money, for the purpose of educating students and cannot be used to subsidise community sport. We would therefore have to be sure if we were to offer community sport that the income this generates would at least cover our costs including; staffing, utility, insurance, equipment and maintenance. The county council has engaged in two rounds of procurement exercises to find a contractor to run these facilities at nil-cost and has been unsuccessful. It is also worth noting that prior to SLL managing the leisure facilities the College did; this was always at a loss which is why it was agreed to contract to an external provider. In recent years staffing and utility costs have increased significantly which increases the financial uncertainty going forward.

The College will therefore need to carry out its own due-diligence analysis of what is feasible going forward based on the constraints that have been outlined above. We are not in a position to guarantee there will be any community offer but neither have we ruled it out. Any current users should, at least in the short term, look to make alternative arrangements as we will not be able to immediately allow public access to our facilities once the current contract ends.

We cannot comment further, or answer individual enquiries, we will however provide an update once we have had time to consider a way forward.