A number of established sports clubs fear they could lose out in Huddersfield’s new £36m leisure centre.

Kirklees Rebound Trampoline Club is considering its options after being offered hall space during the day - when its members are at school - or after 9pm.

The Huddersfield Badminton Club have raised concerns about conflicting scheduling with noisy classes and a lack of transparency when they ask for information; the Indoor bowlers are already questioning if they are still part of the plans and the Examiner is aware of two other clubs concerned about timetable changes and suitable provision.

Those clubs do not wish to go public with their concerns yet, but one is looking for space outside of Kirklees Council and Kirklees Active Leisure control.

Kirklees Cabinet is due to consider a “proposed service-led change to the business operating model” sometime in July in order to “change the service offer of the new Huddersfield Leisure Centre to ensure the most efficient use of the new provision”.

The clubs feel they are being frozen out with less than a year to go as the new centre takes shape at Springwood.

Trampoline club Kirklees Rebound would need £500,000 and a new base for its 180 members and waiting list of almost 200.

They encountered further problems when they discovered the room height in the new centre doesn’t allow elite members the head height to bounce without potentially hitting their heads after a recent rule change. Rebound would also have to erect and dismantle trampolines each session, with not enough storage for all their equipment.

Coach Debbie Mallinson said: “We’ve been time-tabled out. To offer us times during the day or after 9pm is crazy when they know our members are children and teenagers.

“They said we could have weekends, so we wondered if we could change how we operate and become a weekend club, but they told us we could only have weekends if there were no events on in the sports hall.

“We asked how often they wanted events and they said as often as possible.

“Eight years ago when all the club chairs met to talk about the new sports centre we were promised the same time and space in the new centre, they’ve pulled the rug from under our feet at a very late stage.”

Badminton player Jim Gillan says the focus is on ‘exercise to music classes’ with sports clubs using the current centre feeling overlooked.

 

“The council needs to be open with their biggest stakeholder and that is the sports community that will use their facilities.

“We’re not asking for special treatment, we’re asking to be treated equally.”

The other clubs said Kirklees could stand to lose a lot of revenue if clubs - and their hundreds of members - look elsewhere due to the uncertainty.

A Kirklees Council spokeswoman said: “No club currently using Huddersfield Sports Centre had been guaranteed a place, although the Judo club have now been asked if they would like to move their club to the new Leisure Centre.

“We have reached the stage when we need to consider what activities will be included in the new leisure centre – no decisions have been finalised yet.

“We have a duty to maximise the number of local people using the new leisure centre. Our aim is to make sure that the new Leisure Centre is used by as many people as possible over the years to come.

“The new leisure centre will be a fantastic addition to Kirklees and will offer a wide range of activities that we hope will lead to over 800,000 customer visits per year.

“Kirklees Active Leisure will be in touch with all their customers early in 2015. They will also be in touch with club members to discuss new booking arrangements as they are valued Kirklees Actives Leisure customers too.”

She added that all martial arts clubs will have a “suitable, dedicated space”, the badminton, netball, volleyball, 5-a-side, futsal and basketball clubs “will have a suitable space”, there will be a dedicated climbing wall facility, two squash courts will be available and “clubs currently using the swimming pool will have a suitable space”.

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