Iain Dalton, Leeds and West Yorkshire Socialist Party
At short notice on 5 November, dozens of people gathered outside Dewsbury Sports Centre for a protest ahead of Kirklees Council’s executive taking a decision on the future of the centre.
Dewsbury Sports Centre has been shut since September last year after Reinforced Aerated Autoclaved Concrete (RAAC) was found in the building.
This provided a convenient reason for the council to include the sports centre among others it wished to close, along with town halls, care homes and more. Due to public pressure, the council was forced to U-turn on a number of these closures, but Dewsbury Sports Centre has remained shut.
But campaigners haven’t given up. They have continued to lobby the council, 5,000 people signing a petition calling for the centre to be re-opened. A few months ago, campaigners held a well-attended public meeting addressed by the town’s independent MP and independent councillors, elected in recent electoral revolts against Labour locally for the cuts, alongside its position on the war on Gaza.
It has since emerged that the RAAC issue only affects the ‘wet side’ of the sports centre and campaigners say the council’s own report recommended that the ceiling be propped to allow for continued use. But instead of reopening a well-used community facility, the council wants to instead turn it into a car park. As campaigners quipped to us: “What’s the point of another car park when there isn’t a leisure centre or other things to come into Dewsbury for!”
On the protest, people told us about how much farther they now have to travel to access sports facilities, to the point that many go less often or not at all.
After extra, but inadequate, funding was given to schools and hospitals for upgrading facilities, some of which are affected by RAAC in Labour’s Budget, then people asked: ‘Why hasn’t the council gone and lobbied central government for funding for our sports centre as well?’
There are other campaigns ongoing over Kirklees Council wanting to now privatise the care homes it tried and failed to close last year. Unison, the largest trade union representing council workers, is involved. It has a policy calling for the council to set a no-cuts budget and demand the necessary funding off the government.
A conference of local community campaigns, fighting trade unions, independent councillors and the MP, and other campaigns could debate an alternative policy that could be put to the upcoming council budget setting meeting instead of further cuts.
