A Bridge of Allan-based sports facilities management specialist has hammered home its ambition to break into the local authority sector in Scotland, after winning a series of major contracts with councils south of the Border.
New accounts for Castle View Corporate Holdings underline the company's continuing progress in England, where its principal subsidiary, Sports and Leisure Management Group (SLM), is now the biggest operator of local-authority-owned swimming pools.
SLM is the largest manager of council-owned golf courses in the UK, and its presence in England was boosted further this month with a major deal with Sheffield City Council, which as part of a deal to run 10 leisure centres will involve the management of two Olympic-sized swimming pools, the Sheffield Ice Arena, and three golf courses. It now runs around 15 golf courses across the UK.
Accounts for the year ended March 31, 2024, filed recently at Companies House, show the company operated 221 sites on behalf of English local authorities over the period. It won five new contracts, including with Central Bedfordshire and Stevenage (14 sites), Waverley and West Berkshire (11 sites), and the London Legacy Development Corporation, for which it runs a site Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for London Aquatics.
Despite its progress down south, SLM has found it challenging to break into the local authority sports facilities management sector in Scotland. Martin Bell, managing director of Castle View Corporate Holdings, said the firm is keen to speak to council chiefs in Scotland and believes his firm can help to halt the decline in the number of sports facilities across the country.
But so far hits attempts to win business in Scotland have been stymied, having seen a contract to run the facilities of Central Region Leisure for Stirling Council slip through at the final stages of the negotiation process in 2017.
Asked why he feels it is proving difficult to break into the Scottish market, Mr Bell told The Herald: “We deal with lots of different councils of different political flavours. We are into politics. I don’t think some councillors like the fact a private operator comes in takes on these facilities. But I think that is something we need to get over mentally and see what we bring to the community.
“In a lot of cases in England we are paying the council to be there, so we turning what in Scotland seems to be a cost into something that actually generates a revenue for them.”
Mr Bell explained that, in cases where it pays local councils in England to run the services, SLM makes money by driving up membership of sports clubs, gyms, swimming pools and other activities. “Because that’s our business,” he said. “We are just a lot more successful at it than the [arm’s length] trust operators that work with councils.
“And of course, because we have the structure, we have got a massive IT structure. We can put in lots of IT to manage the operation, and we have got a head office that takes a lot of the functions away, that we can manage centrally. So we can reduce the overhead cost of running these set-ups.”
Mr Bell said the firm is hoping to engage with council leaders in Scotland to put its offer on the table, at a time when pressure on public sector budgets are forcing the closure of more and more local authority-run sports and recreational facilities.
“It’s just a shame to be taking these leisure facilities away from the local community,” he said. “It’s tragic at a time like this when the health of the nation [is under scrutiny] and the youth issues that we have got. We should be trying to preserve these assets for the communities.”
New accounts show sales at SLM rose to £335 million in the year to March 31, 2024, from £274.3m the year before. That came as the wider Castle View Group, which includes SLM Cambuslang-based Uin Foods, saw turnover rise to £358.75m from £296m. Profit before tax climbed to £35.77m from £19.73m.
Uin Foods, which makes own-label pizzas for supermarkets, saw an increase in sales volumes across over the period covered by the accounts, lifting turnover by £2.36m to £15m. Mr Bell said the business, which made a pre-tax profit of £980,933, “has been performing solidly”.
He noted that energy costs have been a “massive” factor for both Uin and SLM in recent years, noting that the rise in costs has put some swimming pools at risk of closure. So far it has kept the pools it manages open.
Castle View employs 11,000 to 12,000 people overall, which includes staff who join when it takes over local authority contracts.
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