Friday, January 20 – Sports centres doing well

HRH The Princess Royal officially opened The Pulse in Dursley – the £1.7million revamp of the former Dursley Pool into a leisure centre which is now open seven days a week.

With the centre now offering a range of fitness classes, a brand new gym and a dance studio on top of its traditional swimming activities, it has already exceeded its growth target for its first year of expansion - even though it has only been open since July.

It now has 1,292 members compared to 380 last March. It’s great to see the new centre providing health and fitness facilities and activities which are proving so popular.

In the north of the district, Stratford Park Leisure Centre continues to perform well too.

Since it was converted into an Everyone Active centre in 2011 it has continued to grow from 750 members then to over 2,200.

With obesity a national issue and health and wellbeing a key priority for the council, it’s reassuring that our sports centres are delivering services which the public really want.

It’s also worth noting that they both provide activities and training programmes for all ages and abilities – you don’t have to be super fit to take part, so if you’ve been thinking about starting a fitness routine now is a good time.

Whilst we’re talking about the facilities, it’s the friendly and professional staff at both sites that really make the difference – especially if you’re thinking of dipping your toe into the world of exercise.

Thursday, January 26 – Strategy & Resources Committee, 7pm Ebley Mill

An important meeting which will put forward Stroud District Council’s spending proposals for the next few years as well as figures for council tax setting for the year ahead.

The way that councils are financed has changed significantly over the past few years, and whilst council tax is one form of income that funds the services we provide, it may come as a surprise to many that the majority of our funding actually comes from central government – well at least it used to.

With the traditional government grants being slashed, all councils are having to look at bridging the financial gap in different ways.

This meeting will unveil a number of investment proposals which aim to help improve the district and simultaneously build long term income streams to offset this loss.

The proposals also include increasing SDC’s portion of council tax bills by an average of £5 a year which equates to around 10 pence a week.

You can read more about the proposals in the Gazette this week and you can watch the meeting live online at www.stroud.gov.uk/webcasts