New Milton Advertiser 15th Jan 2021

2 · Friday 15th January 2021

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Councillors quit leisure centre review group Pair have ‘had enough’

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more data, adding: “It is obvi- ous that the management com- pany will need to increase num- bers to increase profits and we simply cannot see where those additional users will come from. “The Lib Dems cannot sup- port the idea of public assets, which we own and raised the money for, being used for com- mercial profit rather than the public good.” Cllr Mark Steele, NFDC’s Conservative cabinet member for leisure, defended the plans and said he had listened and re- sponded to all questions raised by the Lib Dems. He said: “Our vision for the project has always been to cre- ate active communities by pro- viding affordable, accessible leisure facilities, dedicated to improving physical and mental health and wellbeing and es- tablishing a sustainable healthy lifestyle legacy for future gener- ations. “I remain confident that our procurement process will help us secure a viable long-term lei- sure service for the district.” He added the next stage of the process is for the recom- mendations to be discussed at the next meeting of the com- munity and leisure panel, be- fore it goes before the council for a decision in February. An NFDC spokesperson said it had “always made it very clear” it expected compliance with the “legal obligation” to construct the footbridge. NFDC added discussions had demon- strated the footbridge was “ca- pable of being delivered”. She added: “On receipt of this latest planning application, the council sought Redrow’s confirmation that they will en - ter into a new legal obligation to build the footbridge but no reply has been received. This is disappointing. “There has never been any compelling case put forward by Redrow why the footbridge should not be built nor why the planning situation requiring its delivery has changed.” Redrow’s scheme included a restaurant, art gallery and commercial space, but none of those have yet been built. An NFDC planning re- port said the success of those features was “highly depend- ent on the provision of the bridge”.

TWO councillors have resigned from a working group tasked with overseeing a private com- pany taking over the manage- ment of New Forest District Council’s leisure centres. Cllr Caroline Rackham and Cllr Mark Clark, who are both opposition Liberal Democrats, said they no longer wish to be involved in the project to out- source running the five leisure centres, claiming the Conserva- tive-run council was not listen- ing to the public. NFDC has invited private firms to bid for the contract to run the centres at Lymington, New Milton, Ringwood, Apple- more and Totton for at least 10 years. Since it first announced its intention to bring in private management, the issue has pro- voked objections from opposi- tion councillors, protests and a petition attracting thousands of signatures. Cllr Rackham told the A&T: “Quite simply my colleague and I have had enough of this Con- By CAROLYN GRIFFITH and disagree with direction of project Asked to respond to Dr John- ston’s criticism, Sir Desmond pointed to his blog, in which he claimed mass testing and lockdown have failed since both measures “didn’t impact” on Covid deaths.  He wrote: “From the outset a number of us have argued that a lockdown merely postpones the progress of the disease: the moment social isolation meas- ures are eased, then the disease accelerates until a further lock- down is ordered. “Yet this failing policy comes GP criticises MP Continued from front page

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Councillors Caroline Rackham and Mark Clark (insets) said NFDC is not listening to the public on plans to hand over management to a private group

servative administration not listening to anyone – the public, opposition members, even pri- vately voiced fears of their own backbench members.” As reported in the A&T, the customer focus group (CFG) representing users of the leisure centres also quit talks because it disagreed with the council moving ahead with its plans. Sir Desmond suggested a better scheme was to pay vul- nerable groups to isolate until they were vaccinated while life carried on as normal for others. He added: “We expect now to be rescued by vaccines, vindi- cating the government’s strate- gy of suppressing the virus until vaccines became available. “I would hope that the failure of lockdowns, however, would be a lesson that we have learnt for the future, but the way that the critics of lockdowns have been silenced, derided and pre- sented as mavericks, is hardly encouraging.” at an enormous social and eco- nomic cost which will scar our collective life for a decade.”

Cllr Rackham added: “The cost of the process to outsource the management of these cen- tres has so far been put at around £150,000 and has been dragging on for about three years in total. “Our district council employ- ees have been doing a great job for decades and it is simply not obvious how a private company

coming into the district could take over, improve the service, and make enough money over a 10-year contract.” The Unison union has al- ready said it is opposed to the scheme, because it believes it is “politically ideologically driv- en”. Cllr Clark said the project should be paused to gather “We remain committed to reaching a solution that not only improves access to the town centre for residents at Lymington Shores, but ben- efits the wider community and encourages use of public transport and more sustaina- ble modes such as walking and cycling. “We hope NFDC will engage positively with our revised plans at the earliest opportunity.” The planned structure would be 34.5 metres long and 2.4 me- tres wide, just north of the Lym- ington Town station building. It would be open 24 hours a day and comprise a steel frame with glass canopies and brick-clad lift tower. Originally the conditions stipulated the bridge had to be built once 75 homes were constructed. But that figure was later revised to 125 – which NFDC revealed was reached in mid-2018. No building has been allowed since and 17 open mar- ket homes currently stand emp- ty.

Rail bridge row Continued from front page

defended the company, saying it had been involved in discus- sions over the bridge since 2015 with NFDC, Hampshire Coun- ty Council, Network Rail and South Western Railway. “Unfortunately despite our best efforts we have not been able to reach a resolution with all parties in order to construct the footbridge,” Mr Sneddon said. “Therefore, we submitted a revised planning application in late 2020 which requires the section 106 contributions and the need for the footbridge to be re-considered, and our ob- ligations to be met through a package of alternative high- way improvement works or an equivalent monetary contribu- tion to the community well in excess of £1m, something that had been agreed in an earlier version of the planning agree- ment.

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Aldi given go-ahead Continued from front page

arrival of Aldi would not affect the viability of the popular Mor- risons store or other smaller shops in the town centre. Cllr Maureen Holding stressed up to 1,000 homes were earmarked for development in New Milton in the coming years and demand was set to rise. The committee noted pre- vious food stores had failed at

A CGI of the store proposed at Caird Avenue

the Co-op site and suggested it could be developed in a dif- ferent way. Aldi has pledged

£20,000 of contributions to the local highways, members point- ed out.

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