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| Cambridge Liberal Democrat Manifesto 1998Leisure and the Arts |
Liberal Democrats place a high value on the Council’s activities in leisure and the arts. Our strong preference is for spending on schemes that have a social benefit beyond the private benefit enjoyed by those who take part in or attend events. That means that we stress events linked to education, such as the Children’s Arts Festival, to economic development tourism and the future of the city centre, such as the Arts Theatre and Cinema, and to health and safety, such as swimming - especially for young people. We confirm our intention to provide free swimming for all young people.
We also recognise the value of arts, sports and leisure activities in helping to divert young people away from anti- social or criminal activities. When young people complain that there is nothing for them to do, the Council has a strong social reason to intervene.
Although it is right to emphasise the benefits of arts, sports and leisure spending for young people, we also recognise the social benefits, especially educational benefits, of such spending for all. And although we strongly support locally based projects - including the upkeep of recreation areas and play equipment - we also recognise the importance of larger arts venues for economic development, for promoting overnight-stay tourism and for encouraging a wider sense of community.
Recent decisions by the Labour-controlled council have caused a crisis in the arts in Cambridge. Massive cuts in the funding of local arts and sports groups have accompanied the cutting of the Children’s Arts Festival. Worst of all, the combination of Labour’s philistinism and parochialism has contributed to the possible closure of the Arts Theatre and a crisis of confidence in the future of the Arts Cinema.
Our immediate priorities are therefore:
Beyond the sphere of the Council’s own spending, local government can have a useful role in encouraging the private development of leisure facilities in appropriate places, and it can use its planning powers and its own land- holdings to good effect. We support the development of leisure facilities at the Cattle Market site. We are also pressing for the some of Cambridge’s other obvious gaps in commercial leisure - an ice rink for example - to be plugged as part of the future development of the Chesterton Sidings site.
We have never been impressed with the administrative expense attached to the leisure card or with its use as an excuse to cut off from funding educationally important bodies such as the Botanical Gardens. We are even less impressed with Labour’s doubling of the cost of the card for the neediest citizens. We will completely overhaul the scheme.
| The Parkside Pool and the Arts Theatre clearly illustrate Labour’s approach to leisure and cultural policy. Instead of
refurbishing Parkside Pool, Labour first did nothing and then blew £4m of the council’s capital reserves on a new
building which will contain a swimming facility not much different from the old one.
On the Arts Theatre, Labour refused all calls to help the Arts Theatre Trust to clear its debts and forced the Arts Theatre Trust into a fire sale of assets, including the sale of the Arts Cinema, threatening the future of both institutions. |