Our administration left office with a clear commitment to either a new or fully refurbished Maidstone Leisure Centre to be provided within the capital programme with a clear timeline for working towards that goal. Preliminary work had been carried out with officers, site visits to other authorities to understand the new facilities that they had put in, the financial costs for the facility and the financial, social and health payback that their new facility was offering to their community. The building has the biggest carbon footprint of all of the council's assets and the highest energy costs to heat, this needs to be addressed.
The new administration has spectacularly failed to answer a direct question from an independent councillor colleague asking whether they still maintained commitment to that timeline and to the provision of an updated facility for our town.
The new administration will be re-writing the councils strategic priorities document and altering the Medium Term Financial Strategy to fit those new priorities. We ask them to make sure that a new facility exists in Maidstone to make sure that leisure and the life saving skill of swimming is prioritised in the new documents. It is a facility that serves everyone, can be combined with other offerings such as more formal health provision to complement the facility and is located within the beautiful setting of Mote Park which can be made more of in the new centre. Parts of the centre date from the 1950s and minor refurbishments are making it acceptable for now, but are doing nothing to provide up to date sports facilities for our community. As the County Town of Kent, Maidstone residents deserve these facilities.
Please help us by signing our petition so that we can let the new administration know how much we value swimming and sport in our community and are committed to a new future provision for Maidstone.
We will accept signatures until the end of 2025.
The petition will be presented to a meeting of the Maidstone Cabinet before they finalise their strategic priorities and capital programme.
The data will be retained until the end of this period of administration in 2028.