A £2.1 million fit-out of a new council gym is set to go ahead despite a challenge from politicians.
Councillors on a scrutiny committee recently ordered a rethink of a decision to approve the spending on the Manor Park gym earlier this month.
But Labour council leaders voted to press ahead with the fit-out and agreed that providing “high-quality leisure facilities” was a “substantial investment in our local communities”.
Newham Council’s cabinet agreed to release the money for gym equipment at the Greenhill Centre development in High Street North last month.
The new gym will be a replacement for Manor Park Fitness Centre, which closed in 2021 to make way for the new Greenhill Centre housing development.
The money will come from the council’s capital funds, which pay for assets and infrastructure and cannot be used for day-to-day spending.
At a meeting held to challenge the decision on Tuesday 8 October, councillors said they were “not satisfied” that the £2.1m expenditure was justified.
Members of the overview and scrutiny committee said the council should have explored “other sources of funding other than the public purse”.
They called on the cabinet to review its decision to release the funding.
Speaking to the cabinet on 23 October, overview and scrutiny chair Lester Hudson said he was “disappointed” that council leaders rejected the committee's recommendations.
The Labour councillor said: “Given the pressures, how can we justify £2.1m discretionary spend on a single project when the council faces a deficit in the immediate term of £90m?”
Cllr Hudson also said the committee was not happy with the financial information they had been provided.
He said: “I would expect the financial appraisal of this scheme to show how many additional punters would break even over a five-year scale.”
Cllr Hudson added that financial information – kept confidential from the press and public – was “exceptionally poor”.
However, the cabinet voted to approve a report recommending that they re-approve the spending.
The report said a contract with leisure provider GLL included providing the funding to reprovide and fit-out the gym. It said that GLL had agreed to reduce the management fee it charges the council year-on-year, on this basis.
It also said that deciding not to fund the gym would have “adverse financial consequences”. This is because the contract would have to be renegotiated and because the space had been specifically designed and built as a gym – meaning it could not easily be used for another purpose.
The report added that the council had considered whether a private company could run the gym. But it said this would mean the council and GLL would lose out on fee-paying gym memberships.
Labour councillor Rita Chadha, the council’s cabinet member responsible for health, said: “This is an invest-to-save proposal. This allows the council to get better return on its investment and also improve the health of its residents.”
She added: “It is right that we should think about commercial options, but they are simply not viable in this context.”
Cllr Chadha also rejected the claim that the financial information given to councillors was insufficient.
She said GLL had provided “clear data and intelligence” to support the plans.
The cabinet voted unanimously to confirm the funding.
