Cost of offloading Stafford leisure facilities hits £400,000

Costs for the project, which was supposed to save taxpayer's money in the long run, have soared by nearly 200 per cent.

Opposition councillors have claimed the authority went in to the move 'blind' and declared the figures now need investigating.

In November 2015 Stafford Borough Council announced leisure services including the Gatehouse Theatre along with leisure centres in Stafford and Stone would be run by a charitable trust by late 2017.

Authority bosses said the move would safeguard facilities and jobs while saving the council in the region of £540,000 a year.

Bosses originally budgeted £150,000 for the 'procurement of a leisure and culture partnership' but now the costs have spiralled to £410,125.

The biggest contributor to the uplift has been money spent on legal support.

The council budgeted £55,000 but instead they have forked out £206,625 as well as an extra £42,000 for 'specialist concession' advice.

Labour group leader councillor William Kemp said: "We are not happy with the decision to go out to a trust we feel it's the wrong move and obviously now they are finding it's going to cost them a lot more to set this up. I think they went into this blind.

"Obviously they didn't think it through.

"You begin to wonder whether the financial outlay is worth the risk they are taking. It is amazing how much it has gone up and it needs to be investigated."

But council leader Patrick Farrington defended the project.

He said: "The rising costs have been clearly set out.

"It is predominantly to do with the legal advice and legal help required due to the complexity of the deal.

"If you consider what is been proposed, the complexities of the different properties, the different lands, it partly explains why we initially considered the costs less than they have turned out to be."

He added: "Those who have criticised this have not offered anything constructive against the proposal.

"The simple point we are arriving at is we want to deliver the same service to the public at a lower cost. What is the difficulty in seeing the end game around that? It is a no-brainer.

"The other thing is that 75 per cent of local authorities deliver leisure services through a trust. This is not something we are doing on our own."

The costs are set to be discussed by the council's Special Community Services Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday January 10.