Powys County Council has said that the reduction in Leisure centre funding is related to fluctuations in energy prices - and that last year's spend was an exceptional one because of the unstable market.
In the draft budget released by the council it showed that there would be a reduction of over £1 million to the leisure budget for Freedom Leisure.
However, Powys County Council has now confirmed that this was just the removal of extra funding that was provided last year to support the leisure centres whilst energy prices went through a period of severe inflation.
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According to Powys County Council, “in December 2022, Freedom Leisure were reporting significant increases to utility costs, which were predicted to continue for a period of time as a result of the war in Ukraine.
“Powys County Council agreed to support Freedom Leisure with these unprecedented additional costs into the 2023/24 financial year with additional £1.1million.”
A spokesperson for the council said “With reduced and stabilising energy prices and Freedom Leisure fixing their energy price contract, Freedom Leisure confirmed that they did not require the additional funding.
“As the additional funding was not needed by Freedom Leisure, this has been put forward as a budget saving.”
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