ePetition details
Petition to transfer St. Mary’s Leisure Centre to Inner City Box Club, under Southampton City Council’s Community Asset Transfer Policy approved by the Council’s Cabinet on 17 April 2018.
Inner City Boxing Club (ICB) is petitioning Southampton City Council to approve the takeover of St Mary’s Leisure Centre, currently closed down. As a community club, ICB is the training home of over 800 children and adults from St Marys, Northam, Newtown and the Inner City area.
We, the undersigned, boxing fans and concerned citizens, believe that St Mary’s Leisure Centre belongs to the local community and as such should be used by the local community as a centre of sports and recreation. We urge our Council Leaders to approve the takeover of St Mary’s Leisure Centre by Inner City Boxing Club.
This ePetition ran from 03/03/2020 to 03/03/2020 and has now finished.
679 people signed this ePetition.
Council response
The Council would like to thank you for taking the time to petition it in respect of this matter. The Council would also like to take this opportunity to recognise and acknowledge the work ICB undertakes and the support and training it provides to the local community.
As you will be aware, the facility known as “St Mary’s Leisure Centre” (“SMLC”) was subject to a competitive bidding process in late 2019 following a formal decision by its Cabinet but that, unfortunately, the Council was not able to appoint a new occupier of SMLC as a result of that process. Following the completion of this process, the Council is now reviewing how it should proceed in respect of SMLC. In the meantime, SMLC has remained open to the public, is operated by Solent University and continues to provide a range of sports and leisure activities for users of the centre.
The competitive process undertaken in late 2019 was not undertaken as part of the Community Asset Transfer (“CAT”) policy. The following link http://www.southampton.gov.uk/people-places/community-places-rights/cat/ sets out the Council’s CAT policy; this allows any organisation to make a speculative CAT enquiry provided it is in accordance with the policy.
I hope this clarifies the current position.