COUNCIL chiefs in Kirklees have agreed to pump £4m into the borough’s leisure operator to underwrite “irrecoverable losses” incurred during the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

The medium to long-term bail-out for Kirklees Active Leisure (KAL) was agreed at a meeting of Kirklees Council’s decision-making Cabinet (June 28).

It is hoped that the cash boost will help stave off staff redundancies.

Operator KAL runs leisure services, including the bulk of swimming pools, across the borough on the council’s behalf. However it has been massively impacted by lockdown and the “virtually total” loss of customer income.

It has furloughed many of its staff during the Covid-19 outbreak.

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The nine-member Cabinet agreed to underwrite KAL’s losses up to £4m.

A report said: “This figure assumes no KAL redundancies, no extension of current furloughing scheme by Government beyond October 2020, and a partial and gradual resumption of some leisure activity from August within presumed social distancing guidelines.

“We recognise, however, that the landscape is changing rapidly and this timescale may change depending on Government guidance, and KAL will continue to provide us with revised projections should any of these expectations change.

“The projection also assumes that KAL reserves will have reached the minimum figure of £500k at year end, which it needs as a minimum contingency as a hitherto £16m annual turnover operation.”

In the same report officers warned that to not support KAL during the current “challenging” period would leave it vulnerable with the likelihood that some of the 12 leisure facilities it operates could close “and possibly even lead to the demise of KAL”.

The bail-out will run to the end of the current financial year.

Senior councillor Graham Turner said the leisure sector had been particularly badly hit during the pandemic “and will continue to be hit for some considerable time.

“Social distancing is really difficult.

“Some of the facilities they operate and some of the things they offer – such as TAG X and Dare 2 Air – are really not going to come back into use until we have either a vaccine or a change in policy when people are allowed to move more freely together.”

Officers with the union GMB, which represents KAL employees, have urged the council to end outsourcing and to take  leisure services back in-house.

They have been run by KAL since 2002.

GMB organiser Andrew Aldwinkle said the bail-out would not be the last and demonstrated that “the current model is broken and needs fixing”.