Colomendy, Schools asked to bail it out
SCHOOLS in Liverpool are being told to hand over thousands of pounds to fund Colomendy outdoor education centre.
The North Wales centre, which has been loved by generations of Liverpool schoolchildren, is already losing around £1m annually and needs £500,000 a year to remain in operation.
Now Liverpool council has given city schools two options - to pay thousands of pounds from their budgets towards its upkeep, or pay increased costs to use the centre.
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Once again someone felt the need to attempt to close something, anything just close it and save money.
£10 million facelift for Colomendy
A new life for Colomendy
Liverpool's North Wales school camp Colomendy is set for a £10 million facelift transforming it into an Outdoor Activities Centre.
Liverpool schoolchildren’s Welsh retreat, Colomendy is to change wih a £10million redevelopment. The prisoner of war style cabins of Colomendy that have played host to over 350,000 Liverpool schoolchildren are to become part of a new Outdoor Pursuits Centre.
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(Kev will be chuffed) :nod:
£1m transformation of Colomendy centre
£1m transformation of Colomendy centre
A firm hopes to clinch a deal for a council-owned outdoor pursuit centre.
A MAJOR £1m transformation of Liverpool's Colomendy education centre was unveiled yesterday by the private leisure company that wants to make it the "best in Europe" by 2009.
Already, 75 Liverpool schools have signed up to visit the 130-acre site, after adventure facilities were added, including Wales's longest "zip wire", and Europe's "most realistic" artificial cave.
A new climbing zone is so impressive that the Army has revealed it wants to sign up to train new recruits on what it says is the best facility of its kind outside Catterick military barracks.
There is also a picturesque new lake for canoeing, sailing and rafting, an archery zone, and a six-pond, great-crested newt reserve in the woodland behind the centre's "top camp" dormitories.
The largest of two new zip wires runs for 120 metres over an 80-metre drop, offering exhilarating views of the Denbighshire countryside, including most visitors' favoured hike, Moel Famau.
Behind it is a 40-foot high climbing wall fixed to a tower, at the top of which is a rope bridge that children are clipped onto with a harness before crossing over a small ravine.
Farther into the woods is another series of five-sided wooden towers equipped with climbing walls and abseiling ropes designed to build team work and communication skills.
More adventurous children can be clipped by a harness to a huge 'aerial trek' where they must navigate a quadrangle of scramble nets and obstacles, while dangling 40ft up.
Another series of adrenaline-inducing contraptions includes the 'traverse swing', where children are hoisted 40ft in the air from the waist and launched into a 180-degree semi-circular 'flight'.
Below lies a new 40-metre long artificial caving complex complete with giant fake 'stalagmites' and 'stalactites' to echo natural features protruding from the floor and ceiling.
The cave, which is entirely made of concrete, allows youngsters to learn about underground geology and re-enact rescue missions, without the risk of flooding or getting lost.
The changes are the first phase of works which private company Kingswood wants to continue if it wins a contentious £50,000 a year lease to operate Colomendy for the next 30 years.
The company, which already runs nine outdoor pursuits centres in the UK and one in France, has pledged to spend a further £10m redeveloping the site over the next three years.
That will include demolishing the entire lower camp, building 14 new log cabin dormitories at top camp, refurbishing all kitchen and classroom facilities - and at last, adding indoor toilets.
The company says there is also potential to build a heritage centre on site and re-open Colomendy farm, which used to supply the surrounding area with milk but now lies derelict.
The deal will secure the future for the centre, which has hosted 350,000 Liverpool youngsters since it started taking evacuees from the city in 1939.
It will save 28 jobs and create 100 more for adventure instructors, site supervisors, administrators and catering staff.
It will also increase the centre's capacity from just under 400 to 600 beds, increasing the annual number of nights individual beds are filled each year from 30,000 to 70,000.
Kingswood will also take over Liverpool's £1m a year upkeep costs for the centre, under the deal which the council says is the only option to save Colomendy from closure.
But the plan, to be debated behind in private at the Liverpool's executive board meeting today, and expected to be signed in weeks, is not without its critics.
The city's Labour group is heavily opposed and has pledged to force the issue to be heard by a council select committee in a fortnight.
They are concerned Liverpool's most disadvantaged children, who until now paid £23 a place, will be priced out of the market when Kingswood introduces its commercial rates of up to £90.
Labour says the deal means the poorest children will only be offered cut-price places during off peak periods, and only richer children will be able to afford the coveted summer weeks on site.
But the company is pledging to provide £3m in subsidies which the council has agreed to offer a 50% discount to the 40% of Liverpool children who are eligible for free school meals.
And they say the deal includes a guarantee that Liverpool schools will continue to be offered first option on places before the facility is opened up to the external market, each year.
Ken McCondless, Liverpool council's project manager for Colomendy, worked for four years to secure a deal to save the centre.
Walking around the site yesterday he contemplated the future of the facility if the deal was not approved.
He said: "I fear for the 28 jobs here. There is no quick fix for Colomendy. We have already tried two public private partnerships that have failed, and this really is our last option."
Last year 24 primary schools paid commercial rates to use Kingswood centres in the Lake District, Staffordshire and Denbigh, with others opting for the company's French centre in Dieppe.
A total 37 Liverpool schools used Colomendy this year - none of which booked in advance.
But since the new brochures came out Kingswood says 75 of Liverpool's primary schools have already signed up for the next academic year, starting in September.
MR McCONDLESS said: "We carried out a survey of all the Liverpool schools and what they thought was lacking was good quality modern accommodation, and more on-site activities.
"This site was fine in the 1950s and 1960s, but you can't expect kids today to use outdoor toilets when there are so many other places with more modern facilities around."
He added: "We are very conscious that we don't want to price disadvantaged kids out of the market, and that is why we have worked hard to negotiate the subsidy."
The £1.08m spent by Kingswood so far includes a £780,000 Big Lottery grant, awarded after several failed attempts to secure English funding for a facility over the Welsh border.
Now Mervyn Turner, Educational Development Manager for the operator, says the company hopes to make Colomendy its flagship centre.
He said: "It's a fantastic site, unrivalled in terms of its location and its size, and the redevelopment so far is awesome, the difference is immense.
"We want it to be our flagship centre within the next few years."
He admitted Kingswood needed to market peak season places at the company's highest prices, to fund the refurbishment and enable lower prices off peak.
But he reiterated the company's commitment to Liverpool - although he could not guarantee places would be kept for the city's children, unless schools booked well in advance.
He said: "We do understand people's concerns that poorer families will be disenfranchised, but we have pledged to do our utmost to provide the best quality experience to the children of Liverpool.
"We have written a guarantee into our 30-year lease that Liverpool schools will be offered first option, and we are providing a £3m subsidy to the council and it is up to them how they spend it."
Testing out the new climbing area yesterday was a party of Sheikhs invited by the army as part of a major ethnic minority recruitment drive.
Luther Magliore, community liaison officer for Army recruitment in the North-west, said: "These are certainly the best facilities I've seen, probably outside our own para training centre in Catterick."
"What they've created is fantastic because it's all in one place. "We'd like eventually, if at all possible, to find a way to bring people here regularly."
It could be a sign of the future as Kingswood is keen to look into the option of expanding use of Colomendy for adult groups if it needs to fill spaces - although the idea of an on-site hotel has been ruled out. Liverpool's executive member for education last night put his full weight behind the deal.
Cllr Paul Clein said: "Colomendy never was exclusively for Liverpool schools - it always had bookings from outside, although the proportion of these has declined in recent years due to better facilities being available elsewhere albeit at a higher price.
"Kingswood's profit margin is not particularly high given the several millions of investment they are incorporating into the site and they will have to finance from their own resources and we have driven a hard bargain with them."
"Twenty-four Liverpool primary schools, including mostly primaries from inner-city areas, used Kingswood environmental education facilities last year in preference to Colomendy even though the cost was higher, compared with 37 Liverpool primary schools who used Colomendy.
"This is out of a total of about 150, a few of which are infant schools only and would be unlikely therefore to go."
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Should Colomendy be run by a private firm?
Should Colomendy be run by a private firm?
COLOMENDY, the outdoor education centre in Wales, visited by over 300,000 Liverpool children, is to be leased to a private operator.
The city council's ruling Liberal Democrats insist the centre, owned by Liverpool since 1957, is not being sold off, but handed to Kingswood who will operate it for 30 years.
Opposition councillors say that is playing with words because the city council will, effectively, lose control of Colomendy until 2036.
Kingswood plans to invest millions to improve the facilities at Colomendy, money the city council cannot afford.
The price for that though, is that Colomendy will open its doors to visitors from all over the country.
Liverpool council insists the deal it has struck with Kingswood will ensure that children from the city can enjoy a 50% discount on 43 weeks of the year. However, no pricing structure has yet been published so it is not known what fees will be on a week-by-week basis.
Colomendy is dear to the hearts of generations of Liverpool people who, as children, headed to Loggerheads to swap the backdrop of a large industrial city for a Welsh Valley.
Whether the Kingswood lease deal is the only way of saving Colomendy from closure has split opinion.
There is no doubt that in the hands of Kingswood it will survive, and possibly prosper, but some may wonder whether the price of Liverpool relinquishing something very special is too high to pay.
The council's Executive Board has agreed to the lease with Kingswood, but the decision in the coming weeks faces scrutiny by a committee of councillors.
Even so, it is hard to see, at this stage, the deal with Kingswood being blocked by the committee.
That being the case, the eyes of the critics will focus on Colomendy to ensure the most impoverished children of Liverpool are never forgotten.
YES SAYS Paul Clein, Lib-Dem executive member for children's services
COLOMENDY holds a special place in the hearts of people in Liverpool, but, in recent years, the outdoor education centre has become less and less popular because there are better quality alternatives available, all privately operated.
Outdoor toilets and 70-year-old wooden huts do not meet the requirements of 21st century children.
Consequently, many schools have been voting with their feet. Three out of four Liverpool schools which now use such centres do not choose Colomendy.
We have been working since 1998 to come up with a viable way of securing the long-term future of the site and injecting the millions of pounds needed to upgrade it. The council explored alternatives and concluded outside specialist expertise was needed.
We appointed Kingswood because they have an excellent track record and an ambition to make it the best site in Europe.
Last year, 24 Liverpool primary schools, many from the poorest areas of Liverpool, used other Kingswood facilities and paid top price to do so. When Kingswood manages Colomendy, Liverpool schools will have first refusal on places and enjoy substantial discounts during 43 weeks of the year for less well off children visiting with schools or voluntary groups.
I will be asking my Liberal Democrat colleagues to match Kingswood's subsidy in next year's budget to ensure that even more children benefit. Crucially, the council will still own Colomendy.
Regardless of who takes over, Colomendy still needs multi-million pound investment.
Kingswood will be ploughing in its own cash, and will reduce the annual council subsidy from £1m to zero. Labour have continually tried to scupper any option other than giving Colomendy away to a charitable trust, something we rejected five years ago.
Their preferred trust's prospectus consisted of only £25,000 provisionally promised, rather than the millions needed.
As Colomendy is mostly a site of special scientific interest, located in an area of outstanding natural beauty, the planning constraints are fiendishly complex.
We have invested substantially in ensuring that all necessary planning permissions are in place to complete the transformation. There has already been a £1.1m initial investment providing top-quality adventure facilities, an artificial cave complex and a new lake for water-based activities.
Liverpool schools still have considerable loyalty to Colomendy, but are only willing to come if it is modernised.
NO SAYS Jane Corbett, Labour education spokeswoman
WHO would have thought it would come to this?
Liverpool children, from some of the poorest families in the city, treated as second-class citizens by their own council. Unable to afford the peak periods at Colomendy, relegated to wet weekends in November.
So is Joe Cowley, ex-Colomendy pupil, correct when he says that "this city may be Capital of Culture but it has now lost its soul?"
Colomendy is owned by the city. The council can set the rules and ensure that our children are free from discrimination.
But on Friday, the Executive Board voted to, in effect, privatise Colomendy for the next 30 years and remove that protection for our children.
So what has changed? What has happened to the "unique public private arrangement with Kingswood" that would have meant "Liverpool children guaranteed 210 beds" (out of 500) "throughout the year at discounted prices"? The arrangement was the council would provide the money needed to refurbish Colomendy, with the private company, Kingswood, operating the site.
Over the years, the council has allowed Colomendy to run down. Consultants estimate at least £10m is now needed to bring it up to standard. But the council is no longer willing to borrow the £10m. So the council tried the Schools Forum, but, without more information about the financial implications for each school and the new rates to be charged by Kingswood, the Forum felt unable to commit to topslicing their budget for 25 years.
Kingswood then approached the council with an offer to provide the money themselves. The sting in the tail was that Kingswood wouldn't commit to the 210-bed guarantee for Liverpool children, nor discounted rates throughout the year. But is there really no one else out there who could give us a better deal? We don't know because the negotiations have only been with Kingswood.
The alternative, a charitable trust, was rejected by the council way back in 1999. And in January this year, the council voted against Labour's motion to "examine all proposals for upgrading Colomendy including having it run as a Liverpool not-for-profit company or charitable trust to ensure the continued affordable and prioritised access for all the city's children."
There is no doubt in my mind that, once Kingswood has signed the 30-year lease with no rent payable until year seven, and then only £50,000 pa, it will be almost impossible to get it back. We must make sure every avenue is explored before this is allowed to happen. source....