Page 1181 - Reading Mercury

Thur 8th April
DISTRICT’S BIG BOOST FOR SPORT
A massive £4.57M is being ploughed into Wokingham District’s sports centres, in a
new partnership deal with a leisure services company. As part of a landmark deal two
huge state-of-the-art gyms will open in than a year’s time at the St. Crispin’s Leisure
Centre in London Road, Wokingham and the Carnival Pool in Wellington Road. And
the 10year wait for a swimming pool in Earley is now over.
About half the investment will combine with the £1.9M Wokingham District
Council has saved for the 25-metre pool at the Loddon Valley Leisure Centre in
Chalfont Close. The facility, due to open in 2001, will also have a learner pool, a gym
with 90 Machines, a café and a crèche.
The arrangement with the district council and Circa Leisure Plc is believed to be the
largest of its kind in the UK. Circa Leisure which already runs the Carnival Pool, will
now maintain the district’s four leisure centres for 16 years, including the Ryeish
Green centre in Shinfield. Residents will be able to use all the new facilities when
they wish, and they will not have to fork out to become club members.
The investment package is the end result of the council’s decision last May to team
up with a company to manage leisure centres amid fears that it did not have the
resources to provide the best facilities. After detailed discussions, Circa was picked by
councillors last week.

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Thur 15 April
40 SCHOOLS TO BENEFIT FROM SPENDING PLAN
Schools and roads will reap the main benefits of a massive £12.5M council spending
spree. Wokingham District Council has agreed its capital budget for the coming year
and it includes £3.7M to upgrade school buildings and nearly £2M for road and town
centre improvements.
About a third of the cash has come from Government approved loans and the rest is
from the sale of council property including the Downshire Golf Course and buildings
it inherited from the Berkshire County Council. The spending is separate from the
council’s main ongoing revenue budget.
The cash is for one-off works and cannot be pumped into services or lowering
Council Tax. The £22.5M figure is the rounded-up total the council will spend and it
includes many schemes already known, such as £450,000 for a new park and ride on
the A33.
More than 40 Wokingham district schools will get improvements, from new fire
alarms to new classrooms. Thirty-year-old temporary classrooms at the Holt School in
Holt Lane, Wokingham, will be replaced at a cost of £345,000.
About £1.4M of the budget will go on upgrading and resurfacing roads, £200,000
will help repair footways and £70,000 will be spent on the California Country Park
paddling pool.
It is not all good news because the policy committee at the district council which
approved the budget on Monday night, was told it will have only £22M in the next
three years to spend on £58M worth of desired schemes.

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Thur, 29 April
THE END OF AN ERA
At 4.45pm on Saturday the final whistle will sound on league football at
Finchampstead Road after 93 years. Wokingham Town has been forced to sell the

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