New leisure centre sounds wonderful - until you discover the financial burden we will face for next 35 years

Published: 4:13 PM December 4, 2014 Updated: 6:26 PM December 14, 2020

How wonderful! A new leisure centre – until you work out that the plans put forward by East Cambridgeshire District Council will put a burden of over £600,000 on the people of the district every year for the next 35 years.

Even that figure assumes that the centre manages to operate at a profit – something that may be ambitious as the council currently subsidises the Paradise Centre.

Instead of spending more than £12million, the majority of which will be borrowed, perhaps it would be worth considering how the £2.5million it has already identified could be used to build a new swimming pool at the existing site and to upgrade the existing other facilities there.

After all, the thought of people using their cars to drive out to the A10 to get fit surely defeats the object of the exercise?

There will be a lot of people in the city who will either be unable to use the facilities to its full advantage or will not want to use it.

You may also want to watch:

It isn’t that we don’t need the upgraded facilities, but we do need to consider whether or not taxpayers should be committed to repaying such large sums for the next 35 years.

CHRISTINE WHELAN