PA reveals plans to merge Horsecross Arts and Live Active Leisure

Jul 26 2011 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

THE PA can reveal that plans are well advanced for major changes to the delivery of cultural and leisure provision in the city.

Detailed plans are currently being drawn up to merge Horsecross Arts, the organisation formed some six years ago to stage music, drama, comedy, community events and conferences in Perth Concert Hall and Perth Theatre, with Live Active Leisure, the company contracted to operate 14 municipal leisure venues in Perth and Kinross.

Horsecross Arts is an independent organisation with charitable status, governed by a Board of Directors and led by chief executive Jane Spiers.

Its £20m flagship venue, Perth Concert Hall, has gained numerous awards and world-wide critical acclaim since it opened in 2005.

Last spring Horsecross Arts unveiled ambitious plans with a £13m price tag to redevelop Perth Theatre, to create a venue fit for the 21st century while retaining the heart of the 110-year-old venue.

Like Horsecross Arts, Live Active Leisure is also an independent ‘not for profit’ company with charitable status and a Board.

It has just released its ‘Perth City Sport and Leisure Facility Vision’ to ensure provision for our community for the next 20 years and beyond.

Perth Leisure Pool and the Dewars Centre are the focus for this vision, with proposals to create a ‘Live Active Leisure Park’ including significant reconfiguration and redevelopment of the pool area and its ‘fun features’.

Now the future of both Boards is in doubt and staff face a worrying wait to find out how the re-organisation of the two companies will affect their positions.

Iain M Halliday, MBE, chairman of Horsecross Arts, told the PA yesterday: “We understand from Perth and Kinross Council that on June 29 a paper went before full council [in private] proposing the development of a new organisation which would combine the work of Horsecross Arts and Live Active Leisure.

“As a stakeholder, Horsecross has now been invited to discuss the detail of the delivery model prior to final plans being drawn up for council approval at their meeting in September.”

This was confirmed yesterday by a council spokesman: “The Council has been reviewing the way in which it delivers its leisure and culture services.

“As part of this it is looking at the bodies Live Active Leisure and Horsecross, which deliver some of these services for the Council.

“It is currently in discussions with the boards of both of these organisations with a view to making changes which will not only secure, but enhance, the delivery of these services for the future.”