You may have missed a question I asked at the January meeting of Full Council regarding redundancies being made by Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) which I fear may well have an impact on the service levels being provided at the Eltham Centre.
I had spoken with members of staff who had informed me about the cuts and their fears about the impact it might have on the service at Eltham and elsewhere so I was surprised to find the Cabinet Member ducking the question and in a follow up reply informing me that it was “…not appropriate for us (the Council) to comment on their (GLL’s) internal processes”.
The Cabinet Member continued to talk about GLL’s “impeccable record on libraries” which I imagine might come as a shock to UNITE who are protesting in Bromley over the way GLL run their libraries.
So in summary, I think residents across the Borough have every right to be concerned about the cuts by GLL to staff numbers which I believe will impact on services despite the Cabinet Member’s assurances. In fact, I would go further and suggest that the Cabinet Member’s reply was not entirely accurate on a number of levels, not least when she suggested that GLL is independent of the Council because there are three Labour Greenwich Councillors on the Board.
In Eltham, we need to challenge the redundancies at out Leisure Centre, Library and Council Offices strongly and I am afraid that Labour simply isn’t up to this job. For instance, our one Labour Councillor is appointed to the Board of GLL as one of the Council appointees but (to my knowledge) hasn’t spoken at all in public about the potential impact of these cuts.