FOLLOWING the bail-out from Bedford Borough Council to re-open Robinson Pool, Fusion Lifestyle Ltd, the company that operates the Borough’s leisure facilities has given out redundancy notices to staff employed at the town’s other leisure centres.
The redundancy notices state that: “These centres will not re-open in the foreseeable future – the foreseeable future is clarified as six months.”
Fusion had requested assistance from the Borough Mayor, Dave Hodgson, who agreed to pay Fusion £45,500 per month for the next six months to reopen Robinson Pool and for Mowsbury Golf Course which had already reopened earlier.
Bedford’s Athletics stadium is open for club use but with limited facilities. Along with this financial help, the council have also agreed to defer the Fusion management fee of £7,342 per month for six months, and continuing to defer their loan repayments of £52,625 per month (which the council have already been doing since March).
This will cost the Borough around £105k per month, (or £630k in total) just to get Robinson Pool open. The £45,500 per month is to be allocated to the council’s Covid-19 Impact Cost Centre.
Cllr Sue Oliver said: “Labour Councillors are trying to get to the bottom of the issue with Fusion Lifestyle, who have performed poorly for some time.
“We are disappointed with their lack of communication throughout this pandemic with both the Borough Council and residents, who are users of their facilities. I hope that the reopening of Robinson Pool has proved instructive to them on how to operate safely during the Covid 19 pandemic, and they will now prioritise the opening up of other Borough wide facilities.”
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