| Rank | Posts | Team |
| Player Coach | 671 | No
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| Jul 2010 | 15 years | |
| Online | Last Post | Last Page |
| Mar 2016 | Oct 2015 | LINK |
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TO BE FIXED |
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Potentially 300 players lost to the amateur game if this goes ahead, along with all the major health and social benefits the area and players obtain this is an absolute joke from the Wigan Council
Statement of Leigh East Amateur Rugby Club
The future of Leigh East is now in serious jeopardy, despite over five years of negotiation with Wigan Council to try to reach a satisfactory solution to enable the club to enter into a 25-year lease to secure its long-term position. The Council have informed the Club that it will take over its bar and function room at the Leigh Sports Village facility on the 8th July, which is likely to result in disastrous consequences Leigh East and its 14 teams.
Prior to the move to the Sports Village, Leigh East were approached and asked to surrender its facility at Grasmere Street on the promise of a clubhouse, an all-weather training are and grass pitches. No rent would be payable for these facilities. On this basis significant funding was obtained from Sport England and Leigh East offered its full support to the Sports Village project.
By the time the Club moved from its old ground at Grasmere Street in October 2007, there had already been a number of difficult discussions with the council and Leigh East was placed in a position whereby they had no option but to agree to move in to the new clubhouse on the basis that they would run the facility and would pay significant sums in rent and training costs. It soon became apparent that the expectations of the Council where considerably higher than those that could be met by an amateur volunteer run club. From day one, the Club found itself on the financial back –foot with the Council making it clear that in addition to rent and pitch hire, they required significant contributions towards the maintenance of the building, which the Club simply was never going to be in a position to afford. Within a few months of moving in to the club, the Council indicated that it was wished to take over control of the bar but we compromised by surrendering control of the bulk of the building, including the changing rooms. Leigh East were left with the function room and bar only.
From the outset, the Council have indicated that they wanted the club to hand over the function room and the bar to them and Leigh East has fought against this since they took occupation. There are many practical difficulties associated with their not having control of the function room and bar facility which anyone associated with amateur rugby will understand, but the financial implications are nothing short of disastrous.
Despite difficult trading years, the bar at Leigh East has held its own and has managed to meet all its training costs save for in one particularly difficult year when our training costs were excessive due to the transition to summer rugby and subscriptions from our members had to be increased to meet the additional pitch hire costs. The Council argue that the bar does not make significant profits, and have continually argued that bar prices should increase to match those charged at the Sports Village. They dismiss the argument that charging excessive prices for drinks is counter-productive and refuse to provide any evidence, supported by its own accounts from its own function room at LSV, to show how inflated prices could increase profitability.
The Council does not wish to share with Leigh East, how it feels it can generate greater returns for the benefit of the ratepayer, should Leigh East no longer occupy the clubhouse.
Leigh East currently pays rent to the Council for the use of its bar facility in the sum of £19,920 per year, but the Council argues that this rent should be on a commercial basis and the Club should be paying almost £60,000 annually. They seem not to accept that lottery funding was granted to assist in the building of the facility, to assist a community club, and not so that the Council could draw in a commercial rent.
The cost to the Club in hiring pitches, necessary to support 14 teams including open age, women’s and children’s teams, last year totalled almost £21,500. When you add in the rental payment, Leigh East contributed £41,000 last year to Wigan Council; a significant sum of money and probably considerably more than is paid out by any other amateur rugby club for use of facilities and pitch hire. Wigan Council have since the outset offered, by way of subsidy, free pitch hire to the value of £21,000 per year. The true cost of the training costs attributable Leigh East are therefore £42,000. The Council have agreed to support subsidised training costs for another three years, provided that the club ‘co-operates’ with them, but will not commit to their position beyond that time. The removal of that subsidy will bring about the end of the club, as without the opportunity to raise additional revenue from the bar, there is no prospect of £42,000 being raised from rugby income.
What the Council fail to take into account is that the loss of the bar revenue, whilst resulting in Leigh East not having to pay the rent, places impossible demands on the income which can be raised just from rugby. All costs of training will have to be met from subscriptions, gate receipts, sponsorship and fund raising. These costs will prove unsustainable in the very short term. There are a number of costs which have been identified purely as a result of the loss of the bar, which of themselves will place an impossible burden upon the Club. These matters have been put to the Council, but they are unreceptive, and seem to take the view that as the facilities are great, the members should pay for them, but subscription levels have already been increased and there is limit as to how much they can be raised in the future. The philosophy at Leigh East has always been to encourage and develop rugby league within our town at a cost that is realistic, bearing in mind the affordability for the residents. It has never been the Club’s vision that they have a wonderful facility that no one can afford to be a member of. There is no place for such financial elitism within rugby league.
The Council’s position is that they are spending too much on subsidising the Club in difficult times. They quote the free pitch hire, the commercial rents and the running costs associated with the building, which the Club has tried to address by offering to pay an additional £12,000 (which result in the sacrifice valuable training time and increasing subscriptions once more) towards these costs. They state that they are subsidising us because we hire our pitch at ‘partner rates’ – a lower cost than is available to the public, and now state that an additional service charge should be met for us to contribute to the Sports Village as a whole. The simple fact is that should the Council choose to view our obligations in this way, we are doomed. The basis upon which Leigh East is expected to occupy the clubhouse is untenable and was flawed from the outset.
Throughout the Club’s tenure at the Sports Village the club, through it’s committee and solicitor, Karen Baker (who has provided her services voluntarily) have repeatedly compromised and have made proposals to try to resolve this matter in a way that can ensure the survival of the club, whilst recognising the ratepayer subsidy to the facility. The Council now tells us that it not supporting other voluntary clubs to the same extent and that it has to withdraw funding from charities and front line services. Whilst the Club understands that position, it is not thought that the destruction of one of Leigh’s two amateur rugby league teams, with the consequential impact on the community, is a decision that should be taken lightly. The Council have informed the Club that a decision has already been taken by Wigan Council’s Cabinet to implement these changes, though the minutes of that decision cannot be located on the Council’s website. This decision was not made with any prior liaison with the Club affording it no opportunity to address the Council on the implications for Leigh East.
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