The Leisure Review: news in brief

Edition number 86; dateline 24 November 2014

Starting a local cultural conversation
Voluntary Arts and Arts Development UK have launched a national conversation about the value of local culture. Titled Our Cultural Commons, the project aims to explore all aspects of local cultural infrastructure, inviting everyone with an interest in culture to discuss what works, what doesn’t, how and where culture thrives, and how it could reach its full potential. Peter Stark, chair of Voluntary Arts, explained the thinking of Our Cultural Commons at the recent ADuk conference: “Our cultural life – first and last – is local. Our cultural commons should be places where joy and grief can be shared; wellbeing, concern, caring, kinship and respect are promoted; happiness and laughter, wonder and curiosity and learning are everyday experiences. Despite, or perhaps in response to, a harsh economic climate, exciting new collaborative solutions are already emerging.” Jane Wilson, chair of ADuk, explained that the project was about embracing change. “We are in one of those rare moments where change is not just likely, but inevitable, and ways of supporting local cultural infrastructure, which have built up over many years, are not going to remain the same,” she said. “Although this is a significant challenge, it also provides us with a real opportunity, to look again at how we understand, support and nurture the richest possible cultural lives for all our communities.”
• Details of Our Cultural Commons are available via www.ourculturalcommons.org

Books in Broomhill
Action by the Broomhill Library Action Group to challenge Sheffield city council’s decision to ask voluntary groups to run 11 of its libraries has reached the desk of culture secretary Sajid Javid. Culture minister Ed Vaizey wrote to the council to seek clarification of the cuts to the city’s library service and now the culture secretary will review the response to assess whether Sheffield is delivering a proper library service in line with its legal obligations. Sheffield MP David Blunkett, no stranger himself to making difficult, dangerous and deeply unpopular ministerial decisions, said that any intervening from the DCMS would amount to “breathtaking cheek”.

Local authorities urged to do better business
A report published by Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) is offering local authorities a range of positive actions to persuade or ‘budge’ business towards more socially responsible products and business practices. Commissioned by APSE and written by the New Local Government Network (NLGN), the report suggests councils should rethink how they work with local business. Speaking at the launch, Paul O’Brien, APSE chief executive, said: “From energy pricing through to fast food outlets, local councils and other areas of the public sector pick up a cost created by irresponsible or poorly regulated markets. Whether it is issues relating to fuel poverty or obesity related to poor diets, a cost is created on an already overstretched public purse. While most councils have a good relationship with business and positively encourage vibrant local economies, the damage created by irresponsible business practices can’t be ignored. This report calls on councils to use a range of tools at their disposal to challenge businesses, from simple measures such as collaboration with business and encouraging behaviour change among residents, through to more strident interventions, such as the use of enhanced statutory powers. Councils can be much more effective in ensuring that they help to develop responsible business practices in local areas.”
• Better Business: Councils Shaping Markets for Public Value is available to download via www.nlgn.org.uk

Physical futures: driving activity from the front room
A new Future Trends report explores how technology is changing concepts of physical activity. Published by the Future Foundation in association with the Sport and Recreation Alliance, the report considers how the UK’s physical inactivity crisis could be tackled through the use of innovative approaches to changing lifestyles. Five main strands have emerged from the research: the use of data about individuals; movement and performance;
the incorporation of competition elements into product, service and retail contexts; the increasing expectation that healthy behaviours should be fun; the use of social media to interact with others; and the changing role of our living rooms as spaces in which to socialise and engage with sport and recreation.
• Download the report via www.sportandrecreation.org.uk

Managing the numbers behind the mouse
Disneyland Paris is looking for a €1 billion rescue package from its investors after acknowledging that the theme park requires extensive renovation if it is to attract the visitor numbers it needs to be profitable. Since this European outpost of the Magic Kingdom opened
in 1992 275 million visitors have paid handsomely – current charges are £59 per adult and £54 per child – to pay homage to the mouse but numbers have been dropping significantly. Figures for the last 12-month period show 14.1 million visitors but this is 800,000 fewer than the previous year and 1.5 million fewer than 2012. Disneyland Paris is still Europe’s biggest tourist attraction – more people than both the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower – but industry experts estimate that 15 million visitors a year are needed to break even, something last achieved in 2008. With losses expected to be as high as €120 million this year, Euro Disney’s finance director, Mark Stead, explained that the company’s €1.75 billion debt had made investing in the park difficult. He admitted that the park was “tired-looking” and needed to be revamped for the 25th anniversary in 2017.

Positive impact of public health message, number 1
Data from Australia’s Medicare health service shows that rates of skin cancer have dropped, making Australia the first country in the world to show a decline. Between 2000 and 2011 there was a 2% reduction in skin cancer treatments for people aged 25 to 34 and a 1% reduction in the 35 to 44 age group. Launching a new publication, titled Sun, Skin and Health, Terry Slevin, director of education and research at Cancer Council Western Australia, said that the reduction was evidence that the public health messages were working. “People aged 45 and under grew up with sun-smart messages and the ‘slip, slop, slap’ campaign, messages which influenced the policy environment,” he said.
• Details of Sun, Skin and Health available via www.publish.csiro.au

Positive impact of public health message, number 2
Figures from the UK’s Office for National Statistics show that smoking in Britain is now at its lowest level since records began in the 1940s. The proportion of over-18s smoking in 2013 was 18.7%, a decline from the 2012 figure of 19.8%, but the first ONS figures on smoking show that in 1974 45% of adults smoked.

High Line welcomes Hammond return
One of the world’s most celebrated parks, New York’s High Line, has welcomed the return of Robert Hammond to the position of interim executive director of the Friends of the High Line (FHL). Hammond founded FHL with Joshua David in 1999 and spent 15 years at the head of the organisation until taking up a visiting fellowship at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. With Hammond back at the helm, FHL’s board of directors will be looking to develop a long-term leadership plan that will allow the High Line to continue its startlingly successful development. The High Line at the Rail Yards, the latest section of the elevated park, opened recently and FHL is focusing its attention on the design and construction of another section, the spur at 30th Street and 10th Avenue, along with extending its community programming.
• Find out more about the High Line at https://www.thehighline.org/ and via the Leisure Review’s article, New York’s Secret Garden

GLL adds six Swindon facilities
GLL, which manages the Oasis Leisure Centre within Swindon, has added six leisure facilities in Swindon to its Better brand. Swindon borough council revealed that its decision to appoint GLL was prompted by the need to make significant savings and working with GLL will bring savings of approximately £1.4 million in annual subsidies. GLL will run Croft Sports Centre, Delta Tennis Centre, Dorcan Recreation Complex, Haydon Centre, Health Hydro and the Link Centre, making a £3 million investment of their own funds to enhance facilities and services across the borough. Swindon council is providing up to £2 million for investment in the facilities.

API report two sides to the story of children’s play
Good news and bad from the Association of Play Industries. First the good: the API has revealed that some 350 visitors attended PlayFair, the annual trade event for children's play equipment and safety surfacing that runs alongside Saltex. Play equipment was identified as being of primary interest to more than 2,000 (28%) of all visitors to SALTEX and PlayFair, a 52% rise on 2013 figures. API chairman Michael Hoenigmann commented: “It is extremely encouraging to see rising interest in play equipment, particularly at a time when physical activity levels among children are declining. Investment in high-quality equipment and spaces for play are vital if we are to tackle this societal catastrophe.” And then the ‘but’: UK order values for playgrounds and play equipment fell by 6% between the second and third quarters of 2014, from £43.8 million to £41 million. Total order values in the first nine months of 2014 were £128.1 million compared with £128.8 million at the same point last year, a drop of 0.5%. The API suggests that this downturn in the play market is a result of the financial pressures in the local authority sector, traditionally the UK’s biggest play-buying market.

New gallery for the capital
London has a new art gallery is not news – no doubt galleries open and close in Shoreditch on a daily basis – but a new gallery in a historic palace displaying works from the Royal Collection does merit a column inch or two. The Cumberland Art Gallery at Hampton Court has opened in a suite of rooms build in the 1730s for Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, after whom the gallery is named. The walls are hung with works by Gentileschi, Rembrandt and Caravaggio, among many others, and initial reports suggest that the gallery represents a valuable addition to the capital’s cultural capital. However, access comes at a price as the gallery is only open to ticketholders to Hampton Court.

News briefer still

Roger Millward is to stand down as chief executive of the Swimming Teachers’ Association after 23 years with the organisation. He will be succeeded by Theo Millward, who is currently STA operations director. The RLSS has congratulated Ashley Matthews from Cambridge who helped save the lives of his parents and girlfriend in a boating incident in Majorca only weeks after being awarded his National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ). Memorial Park in Redhill has reopened following a £1.5 million refurbishment, part of the wider Redhill regeneration. Health and Fitness Nordic (HFN), Scandinavia’s largest health club operator, has awarded an exclusive contract to Precor to deliver all its cardio vascular and strength equipment. Sports Direct has chosen Gladstone Health and Leisure as the software supplier for the roll out of its health and fitness clubs, Sports Direct Fitness, and Jonathan Christensen has joined Gladstone as the company’s new customer service manager.