Charity sells sports centre amid costs struggle
Highlights PRA charity's sports centre has been put up for sale because it can no longer afford to run the venue.
Crook's community leisure centre opened in 2017 and provided an exercise space for local residents, community groups and junior sports teams.
However, the charity's trustees said it was struggling to subsidise the centre due to rising energy and utility costs, increases to the minimum wage and national insurance payments, and the maintenance of the ageing site.
Trustee Dorothy Winter said: "We are selling because we have to, not because we want to."
The charity had to be "realistic" and the cost of the centre had "increased enormously", Winter said.
"We have a responsibility to ensure that we act according to Charity Commission rules and sadly know when enough is enough," she said.
"We have done everything we can to keep the centre operating, but we simply cannot continue to subsidise it indefinitely."
However, the group of volunteer trustees hoped there could be a future for the site to continue as a sports and community facility if bought by the right people, she said.
Highlights PRThe sale will include the leisure centre's running track, football pitch and adjoining land.
In 2013, residents voted to award the charity £500,000 in council funding to build and run the centre, with additional grants coming from organisations including Sport England - but the value of the site has shrunk to £187,500, the charity said.
Winter explained this represented the current market value and what a buyer was likely to pay and "the two figures cannot be directly compared".
The money made from the sale will be invested in Crook, Willington and Tow Law, as part of their partnership plan.
"We hope people will judge us on the fact that we have tried everything we reasonably could to keep the facility going," Winter said.
"Now, we want to find someone who can take the site forward and, hopefully, make something really positive happen for Crook."
