A Liverpool councillor has branded explanations for the delayed reopening of a Tuebrook leisure centre as "ludicrous" and is demanding accountability. Cllr Billy Lake, who represents the Tuebrook Larkhill ward, said he was "disgusted" to read Liverpool Council's assessment of why it took six years to fully reopen Peter Lloyd leisure centre on Bankfield Road.
A lessons learned report commissioned by the local authority revealed that repairs to the site, which dates back to 1987, cost the council £2.7m, almost double the initial estimates. Officials said it could have been done cheaper "had the council done things right first time."
Council apologises over six-year delay
Andrew Lewis, city council chief executive, said the length of time to deliver repairs represented an "unacceptable situation." He said: "On behalf of the council, I apologise to the local residents, to Lifestyles members and to our councillors." Mr Lewis said the authority had "failed from the start" to identify the work as a complex project and that it was characterised by a series of individual repairs and refurbishments, which created drift in the project's delivery.
The report, which will go before the council's culture and economy overview and scrutiny committee next week, revealed that no single official took responsibility for the project until February this year, despite the site having been closed for almost six years at that point. This impacted "decision making, escalation routes and the poor communication given to members and to the public." The dry side of the venue opened in July 2024.
Councillor rejects 'system failure' explanation
Giving his assessment of the report, Cllr Lake said: "The way I would look at it is very simple, I think it's a masterpiece in sidestepping the issue, because if you read the report, no one is named, and no one is blamed. They're trying to have us believe that throughout a six year contract and phases of development, no one was actually in charge of anything and that it was simply a system failure, and that no individual or set of individuals was actually at any time fully in charge of the project."
He added: "Now, from my experience of industry and the construction industry, that just doesn't happen. It's not acceptable to ask us to believe that. What they're saying is that leisure services, whoever they are, were partly in charge of the project, and procurements were partly in charge of the project. There is no individual named, and, and therefore, no one is blamed, and I just can't accept that."
In his foreword, Mr Lewis said the failures at the leisure centre were "familiar themes" from reports into the council since 2020. The report, which makes 30 recommendations, said lessons for the council to learn were organisational wide and should have been managed better.
Calls for accountability and criticism of missed deadlines
Cllr Lake said he would use Wednesday's committee session to "demand accountability" for the failings of the rebuild, particularly given the number of deadlines that were promised and missed, describing it as a "ludicrous premise." He added: "We were given throughout the period numerous promises. It'll be open in the summer, it'll be open by Christmas, it'll be opening January, it'll be open next pancake Tuesday. Whoever was making those promises must have been the person in charge. Why else would you make a promise like that?"
The Liberal Party representative said Liverpool Council had missed out by not using a local contractor who would have "ate that job for breakfast." He said: "At the briefing meeting, they tried to say to me, 'oh well, we saved money by not having to put the lights on by keeping it closed, so we're counting that, we're factoring that in' and I said, Well, that again is ludicrous, you didn't save money. The place was falling to bits while it was closed. The roof took £400,000 and it took years before they fixed the roof and by the time they'd fixed the roof the interior had been almost destroyed by the ingress of water."
Cllr Lake said one element of the project that had left him "disgusted" was how other major projects had managed to be completed in the city centre during the same period. He said: "They dug up Lime Street twice, they'd done The Strand, all in the time that it took for Peter Lloyd to be refurbished. If what they are saying is really true and really right, that in itself is gross neglect."
