By SC Cook
Campaigners who yesterday successfully saved Pontllanfraith Leisure centre from closure have said they were “over the moon” when the result came through.
Speaking this morning, under 11s football coach and anti-closure campaigner Dean Jones (pictured, right), who was at the judicial review in Cardiff on Monday, told us how the verdict “took a while to sink in.”
The judge ruled in the campaigner’s favour on one of five counts, which was all that was needed to prevent the leisure centre being lost forever. The decision rested on the council’s failure to properly assess the true impact closure would have on different groups of people in the area.
“When we finally realised, it was big celebrations,’ Dean said. “As it stands, the centre’s open. We’ve won!”
Dean told us that the next move in the long battle over the site’s future rested with the council:
“The ball is in the council’s court. Early indications are that they are going to try again [to close it].
He referred to a statement released by the council following the verdict in which it simply acknowledges the verdict but implies that the fundamental case for closure is still sound.
However, it will be extremely difficult for council leaders to press ahead in the face of such determined local resistance.
“They need to weigh up the cost to the public purse and the costs of the court case,” Dean told us. “The money they’ve spent trying to close it could have been invested into the centre instead.”
If the council continue to ignore the wishes of local people and try to shut the centre in the future, Dean says they will be challenged again.
“Watch this space,” he said. “There’s no reason why the equality impact would change. The same people will still be negatively affected by closure.”
Whatever happens, the leadership of the council is now being called into question with some demanding resignations if lessons are not learned from what has happened in Pontllanfraith.
When Voice.Wales spoke to local people in March, many felt the council believed they could close the leisure centre regardless of how much the community valued and used it. Now, their plans are in disarray as a huge campaign that has drawn in support from far and wide has asserted itself as a powerful local movement that cannot be dismissed.
The wider lesson is that these campaigns can win. The steady onslaught of austerity stemming from the Tory government in Westminster can be fought back when groups of people refuse to accept the inevitability of cuts.
Many will now wonder what might have happened had councils in Wales used the skills and passion of their constituents to resist austerity since 2010, instead of fighting them to implement it. As it stands, it has been left to Dean and others to take up the battle and today they have been vindicated.
“It’s huge,” Dean told us. “It’s been a great grassroots campaign. People realised that the centre is such a vital place and they took the fight to the end. It was due to close on Sunday, but now kids can just come down and use it throughout the summer. It was full last night!”
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