Folkestone MP Tony Vaughan on the latest Folkestone Sports Centre update

KentOnline / KMTV

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00:00I actually only learned about this from looking at your website. I mean, from looking at the

00:04article, it appears that what they're saying is that there is every bidder that they have

00:09wants to reopen it, but I'm actually not sure what that means. I mean, what I would like to

00:14see is the administrators accept a leisure-led bid, so that means a bid from a leisure operator

00:20who knows how to operate leisure facilities, rather than a kind of property developer-led

00:27bid where a property developer has expressed an intention to open the sports centre again,

00:33but without any kind of concrete plan to do so. Will you be putting that directly to them and

00:38pushing that on them to get that answer if you hadn't already known today?

00:44Yeah, absolutely. I mean, every kind of avenue of pressure is needed. I don't know all about

00:50the inner workings of where they are. I just hope that the fact that they have a load of bidders

00:57who say they want to reopen the centre, plus the fact that Folkstone High's district council has

01:03accepted our application to designate the site an asset of community value, as well as the issue

01:09of the covenants, will help persuade them to take the right decision, as I think they want to.

01:16What about those 144 jobs? That was a key part of this story right from the beginning,

01:21that the doors were shut and those 144 people didn't have any jobs anymore. How have you been

01:26keeping in touch with them and making sure they're okay and not suffering and can find work,

01:31can maintain an income, considering it was such a quick decision?

01:37Yeah, this was a decision that just came completely out of the blue and people just

01:41weren't prepared for the decision that was taken. And so there's been a lot of people

01:47completely at sea and not knowing what to do next. I know that help was put on to help people apply

01:53for new jobs, to find new opportunities going forward. What happens to those jobs ultimately

01:59will be down to whoever operates the centre, if it again is reopened as a sports centre. But

02:05you know, as we know, the administrators have said we are not making any promises.

02:10And so we've gone from a situation where the centre was completely closed to there being a

02:16kind of chink of light. And I would sincerely hope that as many of those jobs

02:20as possible would be maintained. And Tony, sorry to interrupt, if it doesn't reopen as a

02:28leisure centre and as a sports centre and doesn't supply those 144 jobs, those same numbers,

02:33how much power do you have and how much, I suppose, energy will you put into making sure

02:38that those people are sort of given back what they lost? How crucial will that be for you?

02:44And will you stand by the location if it isn't reopened as what you're asking for?

02:50Well, it's absolutely key to me. This is about people's jobs, isn't it? This is about people's

02:55livelihoods. The decision about those livelihoods is not mine. The decision is in the hands of

03:01whoever is going to run the sports centre again. But what I would say is that I'm not the

03:08administrator. It might be, and the administrators have said this, at least they said it in the

03:14summer, that they can't rule out that the centre won't reopen at all. And so if that happened,

03:20then no jobs would be there. So anything is better than that. And if we're into an arena where

03:30we have got a lot of jobs that are maintained, then that is obviously a result. But of course,

03:34I want to support and will help anyone who still needs help after closure of that sports centre,

03:40which came, as I say, as a shock to everybody. This is about as much as about the employment

03:45as it is about the facility and its importance to the community.

03:49And what will you be doing to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen again? Of course,

03:53running costs aren't getting any cheaper. If anything, they're going to only go up,

03:57especially if it is opened as a leisure centre. They are expensive buildings and facilities to

04:03run. How are you going to ensure that this doesn't just happen again to another few hundred people?

04:10Well, this is a sports trust that was running the organisation for a long time, running the

04:17sports centre for a long time. There was money that it had had for energy efficiency improvements

04:22that was not used. There were decisions that are made in the running of that centre, which,

04:27you know, I haven't seen all the details, but a lot of people have said to me that there

04:32were questions about the way that that centre was being run. Now, if the centre can be reopened by

04:38an organisation that knows how to do that in an effective way, that obviously would be brilliant.

04:44There's wider issues about energy costs and all the things that the government are doing

04:48on that to try to make us have a clean power by 2030, to make sure that we're generating our own

04:54energy and not importing it from kind of foreign dictators who will kind of pick and choose about

04:58the prices that they want to charge for energy. If we can bring all that in-house, essentially,

05:03generate our own electricity and energy, then we're going to be less at the mercy of foreign

05:09energy producers who, you know, couldn't charge whatever they like for energy if they're the ones

05:15that are calling the shots. So these kind of wider structural things are being worked on by the Labour

05:19government as well as a priority. Ultimately, where we have a situation where a private entity,

05:25a charity, has failed, then, you know, the system is that they go into an insolvency situation.

05:34And that will always be the case. But ultimately, I want to see this reopened as a sports

05:39centre for the community so we can move on and get people swimming and playing tennis and skiing

05:44and doing all the things they used to do at the centre again, because the community absolutely

05:48needs that to happen urgently. So in that respect, very simply, will you accept this reopening as

05:55anything other than a sports or leisure centre facility?

05:59Well, if it doesn't reopen as a sports centre, then that's going to be a complete disaster.

06:02I won't accept that. As I say, it isn't my choice, but I have been campaigning about this and I will

06:08continue to campaign about this because it's in the interest of everyone in Folkestone that I represent.

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