Madam,

I was saddened to learn through your pages of plans to close the café at Plascrug Leisure Centre. As a local resident and frequent user of the centre (for myself and my children), I agree with Andrew Curley that this will be a sad loss; I have signed the petition. While of course we all understand that the council has no choice but to implement cuts, they are failing to see the bigger picture: loss of the cafe will bring further financial loss as people use the centre less; and a cafe can in fact be an asset, making funds rather than draining them, if run properly.

This service has already been run into the ground over the last couple of years: I wrote to the leisure centre a couple of years ago when the menu in the cafe was downgraded and hot food was no longer available: they wrote back that they had made these cuts in order that the service could be “continued on a sustainable basis for the foreseeable future”. Since when has cutting the menu back so that people no longer use a café made it sustainable? The café was full most of the time until then, and it’s now mostly empty, so no surprise that it’s making a loss. We recently went there for lunch on a Saturday and were the only customers; we fed our children and left without eating ourselves as there was no suitable food available. This is an ideal location for a café - not only convenient for leisure centre users but also for people en route to the four local schools. I cannot understand why it is not being run to provide a profit for the leisure centre. It could also run a corner shop selling essentials like bread and milk (which a café usually has in stock anyway) to add to the profit - there is no other shop between Llanbadarn Fawr and town, and the number of parents who pass it on the way from school is huge. Surely, if the council does not want to run it itself then another provider could be found?It is a shame that local residents and leisure centre users do not have more say in how the centre is run (and if a decision was taken in 2013, why it has only come to light now?); I’m sure that if their views were taken into account, the leisure centre could be run in a way that better meets people’s needs and brings more custom and greater profit to the centre. Could a ‘Friends of Plascrug Leisure Centre’ group not be formed to help out? I for one would be happy to be involved. It is important in difficult times that local communities pull together to ensure that vital services are retained and improved, rather than lost.

Yours etc,Name and address supplied.