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Gym and leisure services hailed as 'fantastic' - despite being £1.8m over budget

Leisure and health services in Wigan received huge praise from councillors despite being £1.8 million over budget.

The Be Well programme was brought back under Wigan Council’s control in 2021 - when it was spending £6million on an allocated budget of just £0.9 million. But since then, officers have managed to ‘find efficiencies’ of approximately £3.3m since 2021/22 with no reduction in service, a council report stated.

Councillors at the Confident Council Scrutiny Committee meeting on March 27 described what they were seeing by the service as “fantastic” and “astounding” - highlighting it is not easy bringing a service ‘back in house’.

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The number of gym goers has increased to 13,577 at the start of 2023 (almost back to pre-Covid levels), more children are learning to swim again and the Be Well app has seen more than 21,000 downloads, Wigan Town Hall was told.

These are all key factors that Lynsey Johnson, head of wellbeing at Wigan Council, said was paying dividends for improving health inequalities in the borough. She said gyms are unlike private sector options as health is at the core of what they do, with NHS referrals coming in to use the service to help rehabilitate from ailments such as cancer, heart disease, or musculoskeletal problems.

But the cost of living crisis and soaring energy bills has been an issue for the team, with the cost of running gyms increasing. This is slowing down the pace at which officers can reduce the spending for Be Well and bring it within budget, the meeting heard.

“For leisure centres, especially those with swimming pools, the significant increase in utility costs

Read more on manchestereveningnews.co.uk