PUBLIC sport could have continued at the Queen Elizabeth Leisure Centre in Wimborne had the previous administration at County Hall accepted the advice it was offered.

The company behind that exercise says there may still be time to fully re-open the centre to the public with a 'modest' capital investment and ongoing revenue support.

The suggestion will be debated at the Dorset Council meeting on Thursday (18) evening.

A company involved in an initial consultation over changes to the centre says that despite council claims that another operator could not be found two had actually come forward to say they were interested.

Ross Bowell, director of resources at the Initio Learning Trust, also disputes the council claim that it would cost in excess of £850,000 a year in public subsidy to keep the public use of the centre going.

The statement comes on the eve of a debate by Dorset Council in response to a 7,000-signature petition to maintain public sports at the QELC.

Since the end of March the centre has been offering limited opening to community clubs and hire groups but is not available to the general public on a walk-in basis. It continues to operate for school pupils as it previously did.

Said the Initio Learning Trust statement to Dorset Council: "We disagree with the council's briefing note assertion that "the future subsidy at QELC could be in excess of £850K" per year. For example, we received correspondence in June 2024 from a credible local leisure provider advising that "Whilst we recognise that time may have passed and circumstances change; we still believe that given the right set up, investment and staffing levels, a successful leisure operation is possible on the premises."

It says this is contrary to the council claim in the briefing note that "QE school had two years to find a new operator or arrange to manage the facilities directly themselves. They were unable to find another operator so have opted to manage the site under a different operating model."

Initio says that, supported by a specialist leisure consultant, in 2023 it ran an open tender for the continued running of QELC as a dual-use leisure centre and received two bids from regional leisure providers which indicated that with one-off capital investment to bring QELC up to modern standards the centre was potentially viable.

It says that in May last year the, then, Conservative administration was asked to provide additional capital investment and £150,000 revenue support over 2 years to support the continued operation of the leisure centre.

It says the council response was: "Your specific request of an additional £1.557m capital investment from Dorset Council and £150,000 revenue support for 24/25 and 25/26 was reviewed by the Portfolio Holder for Communities and Culture, the Director of Place Services and the Head of Environment and Wellbeing Dorset Council is not able to provide any capital or revenue funding above what it has already committed to do."

The Initio Learning Trust says it is now inviting the new Dorset Council Lib Dem leadership to reconsider the council's previous approach to public facilities at the leisure centre.

"Our market engagement suggests that with a one-off capital investment and little or no revenue subsidy the council could successfully and viably recommission QELC as a public leisure centre operated by a specialist third party leisure provider while protecting QE school's access to the facilities to support high quality educational provision to Dorset children."