There has been a fair bit of fallout following news that the Kirkcaldy Leisure Centre sports hall floor needs to be replaced after less than four-and-a-half years in operation.
And rightly so.
In case you missed it, Fife Sports and Leisure Trust has submitted a business case for a brand new £66,000 surface – even though the facility only opened in September 2013 – after admitting that the current floor has deteriorated as a result of heavy usage from roller hockey.
Thankfully on this occasion elected members on the town’s area committee didn’t just nod this through, and have remitted the matter back for further exploration.
They also branded the decision to allow roller hockey on a surface primarily designed for core sports in the first place as an “expensive mistake” and “disappointing”, and have asked for a breakdown of options and costs to come to a future meeting before they agree on a way forward.
That’s all well and good, but at a time when ordinary people are feeling the pinch and every penny of taxpayers’ money is a prisoner, the whole episode should serve as a very timely reminder that councillors and officers aren’t just playing with Monopoly money.
With £15.3 million spent on the project, there was huge controversy from the outset over the chosen site for the new leisure centre.
Some people still think it was put in the wrong place and could have benefitted from a little more time and consideration, but the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted and Kirkcaldy got its brand new swimming pool.
Following last week’s news, the trust stressed the sports hall flooring was selected with sportscotland funding in mind, as the need to accommodate core sports – including five-a-side football and badminton – helped attract around £1 million towards the total cost.
But somewhere along the line, someone decided that roller hockey could and should be accommodated – and thousands of pounds worth of ad hoc repairs and closures for all users have already been required up to this point.
We all make mistakes, and I’m not suggesting heads should roll. But it’s particularly galling in this age of austerity that more money is going to have to be forked out on something well before it should have – and something or someone somewhere else is going to have to lose out as a result.
If we’ve all got to tighten the purse strings because of decisions taken on high, perhaps more scrutiny is needed of who exactly is looking after the public purse.
