Knight, Kavanagh & Page (KKP) is currently delivering a detailed Leisure Stock Review for Cheshire West and Chester Borough Council; the new authority created by joining the former Ellesmere Port and Neston, Chester City and Vale Royal districts. Responding to the Council's brief, KKP will

"Identify the strategic needs for leisure facilities in Cheshire West and Chester in order to identify what replacement, refurbished and new facilities are required to meet changing demands over the next 25 years."

Adopting KKP's reputed methodology and working practices, work is well underway:

• Desk research has developed understanding of the policy and socio-demographic context.
• The audit of more than 70 facilities has identified the potential of each facility and will inform roles to be developed for each; or, as applicable, provide justification for rationalisation.
• Consultation with over 100 officers, facility staff, NGBs, clubs, schools and other stakeholders has captured comprehensive coverage of key issues and sought buy-in to the overall process.
• An analysis of the current position has detailed the quality, quantity and accessibility of sports facilities in the Authority.
• Application of demand models produced by Sport England (Active Places Power/Power Plus) has underpinned analysis of supply and demand issues; centring on provision of ‘sports facilities' and the demand for them for public and sports club use.

We are also working closely with the Council to develop conceptual options to upgrade and refurbish existing facilities applying scenarios with regard to provision of new ones, identifying key risks associated with implementation.

Drawing together findings from all stages, KKP will prepare a framework which:

• Outlines the level of provision needed to cater for current and increased demand. 
• Identifies stakeholders who could/should be working together to improve service delivery.
• Provides a breakdown of facility improvement priorities.
• States long-term priorities for facility development to an agreed timescale and identifies the incremental steps to be taken along the way.
• Identifies the potential cost of strategy implementation, with clear cost benefit analysis where facility replacement is identified.
• Outlines a plan to secure investment, (linked to planning gain, 'capitalising' revenue savings, growth funds, potential land sale and externally sourced funding opportunities).
• Identifies issues and opportunities and the strategic equality impact assessment.
• Identifies performance measures to assess the impact of the service moving forward.
• Identifies the risks associated with implementing the Review; and those of doing nothing.
• Provides a completed Sport England self assessment framework for the work and identifies further actions required to fill any gaps.

The review framework will provide the Council with the tools to provide high quality facilities equivalent to the best in the sector (private and public) and ensure that they are future-proofed to enable them to meet rising quality demands and broader programme requirements. This in turn will assist the Council to achieve the Government target of annual increases in participation of 1% and to work to deliver on its corporate objective to reduce health inequalities.

The Council will also benefit from KKP's extensive experience of optimising opportunities for joint use/co-location; such as schools, libraries and in this instance improved collaboration with the University of Chester and its six FE colleges. KKP is highly regarded across the sector for driving improvements in community use of sports provision through programmes such as Building Schools for the Future and has also worked with local authorities and universities looking to collaborate to create a mutually beneficial solution to their sports facility needs.

David McHendry who is leading on this assignment for KKP said,

"CWAC is taking a very forward looking and progressive approach to facilities development and management. It's evolving plans for partnership-based delivery and embracing appropriately master-planned and managed schools sites as a fundamental element of its stock for the next 30 years reflect best practice approaches to this issue."