Agenda and minutes

Members are requested at the start of the meeting to declare any known interests in any matters to be considered, and are reminded that any such interest should also be declared at the start of an item or during any discussion of the matter concerned.

The Chair reminded Members of the need to declare any known interests in any matters to be considered at the meeting. The following declarations were made:

• Councillor Jim Robbins made a personal, non-prejudicial declaration of interest as his daughter was receiving swimming lessons at the Oasis and is a member of GLL.
• Councillor Matthew Courtliff made a personal, non-prejudicial declaration of interest as his son was receiving swimming lessons at the Oasis.

It was confirmed that Councillors Ali, Grant, Robbins, Swinyard and Weisinger would be unable to scrutinise the decision they had participated in and voted upon at Council on 17^th July 2014 regarding the Options Appraisal for Leisure Commissioning report on the advice of the Monitoring Officer. In the instance of this report being discussed, it was confirmed that Councillor Emma Bushell would take over as Chair of the Task Group for the duration of that discussion.

Please refer to the explanatory notes below.

The deadline for receiving submissions under this item is 12.00noon on Tuesday 16^th February 2021.

No public questions were submitted.

The Task Group is recommended to resolve that, in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public will be excluded during any discussion under agenda item 5 should it be identified that there could be a disclosure of exempt information, as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

The Task Group resolved that, in accordance with Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act 1972, the public will be excluded during any discussion under agenda item 5 should it be identified that there could be a disclosure of exempt information, as defined in Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act, as the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

The questions asked of, and responses provided by, Mr Damien Siviter and Mr John Watkins from SevenCapital were as follows.

Q: Please provide clarity on what the current situation is with the Oasis?

A: As at the end of last week an agreement to surrender was executed with GLL. The centre is currently not being operated and hasn't been since the beginning of the current lockdown. At present we are working through options regarding the wider site and the centre.

Q: Has any other organisation approached you with a view to taking on the lease for the Oasis?

A: We have had other interest. We are discussing with other parties, just on a fairly general level at the moment.

Q: Is your plan to make sure that the Oasis can reopen as soon as possible? Will you be doing maintenance in the meantime to ensure that, should the building find a new operator, it can be opened as quickly and as easily as possible?

A: We're currently reviewing all the options for the site and the building. We haven't determined to go one way or another and this situation is made much more difficult by the proposed listing. The viability is very challenging for the building. If the building were listed, it would make it much more difficult to find a route through to reopening the centre.

Q: Do you know who put the listing in for the building?

A: No, we don't. We’ve made an application but Historic England have so far blocked that information.

Q: There was some press coverage in the Swindon Advertiser today around concerts that have been planned for the Oasis where people have bought tickets and they are unsure whether those are going to go ahead. Is it your intention to have those conversations with the promoters of those events at any point?

A: It's not something we’ve considered at all at present. The surrender only occurred at the end of last week.

Q: Why do you think the Oasis has closed?

A: Because in its current condition it isn't viable. GLL reported losses each year. There is a substantial amount of work required to bring the centre up to a serviceable standard and that obviously requires significant investment for which there needs to be some form of return.

Q: Would this have happened even if we had never had Covid-19?

A: It’s probably brought it forward.

Q: Do you think that such an amenity that has always been run, either by the Council or by GLL, on a broadly not for profit basis could continue going forward without any form of public or private subsidy?

A: Potentially, if it were substantially reconfigured to bring it to a modern standard. In its current form the energy consumption and staffing requirements are too high for viability.

Q: If you're going to be leasing off the Oasis to a new operator, would that be a lease for the whole of the site or just for the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The next steps were agreed as follows:

·         Members of the Task Group be given some more time to read through all of the relevant documents.

·         The Chair to check with Committee Services that all the relevant documentation has been made available to members, and if there is anything else that could be useful to the discussions.

·         That there will be an item at the next Scrutiny Committee meeting on 8th March 2021, where it Members may discuss what issues have been revealed by further reading of the papers.

·        The Chair to schedule a further meeting of the Task Group with Committee Services to conclude issues (before the pre-election period).