Talks over the lease of Easterhouse sports centre to a partnership of three community groups can go ahead after council approval was secured.
Under the proposal, the council-owned venue would be managed by the Easterhouse Community Sports Hub Partnership, made up of three charitable groups – Basketball Scotland, the Phoenix Centre and Easterhouse Community Sports Hub.
The facility, which is being used as a vaccination centre until March 2023, is currently run by Glasgow Life, the council’s culture and leisure arm.
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Easterhouse’s new partnership has applied to take over under the People Make Glasgow Communities scheme, a programme which the council claims gives local people and groups a “greater involvement in the management of venues”.
Both the Phoenix Centre and Easterhouse Community Sports Hub have been active in the area for over a decade and the partnership has experience in reopening and managing community sports facilities.
Cllr Ruairi Kelly, the council’s convener for neighbourhood assets, said: “The plan put forward by the partnership and the experience of the members involved fills me with confidence that better days are indeed ahead for Easterhouse sports centre.
“Supporting community organisations to take a lead on the management of local assets has enabled greater investment and better service delivery for local people and I look forward to working with the partnership to deliver for the people of Easterhouse.”
At a meeting on Thursday, councillors agreed to the beginning of negotiations over the lease of the sports centre, which was built in 1990, and includes two sports halls, a meeting room, changing facilities, toilets, gym and office spaces.
Cllr Cecilia O’Lone said: “I work in the area, it’s so good to see the sports centre being reopened and the community actually getting to use it.”
Another organisation was interested in taking over the facility but pulled out of the process.
Cllr Kevin Lalley said: “The sports centre is local to where I live and I use it on main occasions, it’s great that it’s going back to the community but I think in negotiations we must stress that it will always be that case, for the benefit of the community.
“It’s in a position where there’s easy transport links. During my door-knocking sessions before I was elected, it came up in my conversations.”
The council believes the partnership is “passionate about providing access to sport and physical activity” in Easterhouse and have a “proven record of doing so”. Over 500 people took part in community engagement, carried out by the partnership, and feedback is reported to have been “overwhelmingly positive”.
A new trading subsidiary, likely to be a charity, will be created by the partnership with a number of aims, including advancing public participation in sport, improving health and preventing, or relieving, poverty.
“Where there is low demand for community activity, ESCHP will seek to fill the facility with other income generating activities which will help to subsidise low cost activities in the centre,” a council report added.
“All activities delivered by the ESCHP will have low cost of fully subsidised opportunities for some or all participants. This ensures that the sports centre will remain a community venue and that everyone will have the opportunity to use the facility.”
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