The city council has moved to reassure residents over the future of Woodmill Activities Centre – described as the "most ecologically valuable site in Southampton” by the Friends of the Itchen Estuary - following concerns it might be sold or leased.

Fears that both Woodmill Activities Centre, and Southampton Water Activities Centre (SWAC) in Chapel, could be sold off or otherwise ‘disposed of’ in a bid to save cash were raised almost a year ago following publication of the council’s ‘transformation programme’, and talk of possible “tough decisions”.

Both venues currently require heavy subsidies, says Southampton City Council (SCC), so it has been exploring options “for giving them a new future” – that is, finding a new operator to run and develop them, through a lease or sale arrangement, without drawing on city funds.

A confidential selection process to appoint a suitable operator to run Woodmuill is reaching its conclusion, using the same approach as for the recently announced new operator of St Mary’s Leisure Centre.

A final decision on Woodmill is expected at July’s SCC cabinet meeting, with the new provider actually in place by September 1.

“[Woodmill and SWAC are] quite different venues, but they are important to the city. So we want them to remain doing what they do and to flourish and grow and do more.

“And in fact being under council management has not helped them with that over the recent years,” James Marshall, SCC’s director of customer leisure and regulatory services, told bitternepark.info.

“But we're exploring options for what that would look like, and lease or sale are on the table.”

He said that the council had engaged with stakeholders, looked at various options, and was evaluating those against a range of criteria.

“For Woodmill, that focuses on maintaining the community asset, looking at the activity stuff, but also a big focus on the ecology of the site and maintaining that.”

Marshall added that Woodmill and SWAC have been separated from the rest of the city leisure contract, responsible for more general leisure venues such as The Quays and Bitterne Leisure Centre, because they are “specialist sites”, better “in the hands of specialist organisations rather than a generic leisure operator”.

He stressed that “strong covenants … that would limit what it could be used for to ensure that there was ecological preservation at Woodmill and that it could only be used for community and leisure use” would be in place in the event that the centre was sold rather than leased.

SCC cabinet member for compliance and leisure, Cllr Toqeer Kataria (left) said the council could step in with expertise to help the operating organisation develop venues, in a similar way that it hopes St Mary’s Leisure Centre can develop under its new operator, Testlands.

“If it goes to a lease, it is something that we can help our organisation to get external funding. We have those contacts there and it will really help,” he said.

The council is also hoping that new-look Woodmill Activities Centre arrangements will “grow and enhance” what’s already happening there: you might not know it, but that’s a huge range of activities, from schools’ camping and outdoor education to archery, climbing, canoeing, raft building... the list continues.

And expand opportunities that build on the site’s unique ecological value.