Leisure and Culture Services Management Contract

PIN notice

The London Borough of Redbridge currently has a single contract for the delivery of Leisure, Libraries, Parks and Culture and the management of the associated assets. The current contract with our provider expires in April 2026 and we are considering our options post 2026 and conducting a formal market engagement exercise. The current contract provides for a management fee of around £11m in 24/25 with a total value of the services provided around £21m.

Our services:

Parks

Management and maintenance of our 53 parks and green spaces management including two large Country Parks in Hainault and Fairlop. Management of those spaces includes managing park hires for events and sporting use in our parks. The events team also manages a number of civic events on behalf of the Council. Our current provider also manages a small Nature Conservation team.

Leisure

Management of four Leisure centres (three of which have pools with a fourth being constructed), two gyms that sit within combined Gym / Library sites, two sports stadiums with athletics tracks and provision for football and other sports (one of which includes a gym), a cycle centre and a water-based Outdoor Activity Centre. In addition to the fourth indoor pool being constructed at Wanstead Leisure Centre, we have plans to build a heated Lido in Valentines Park which may open later next year.

Libraries

11 libraries across the borough ranging from a few much smaller sites to Central Library in Ilford, which is one of the busier local authority libraries in London. Central Library also includes the Redbridge Museum and the heritage and archives service. As well as providing for the delivery of a full a comprehensive library service, our libraries also have significant amounts of hireable room space compared to many other authorities.

Culture

The Kenneth More Theatre in Ilford, the Redbridge Music Service, Redbridge Drama Centre, Valentines Mansion (a heritage site open to the public and a wedding venue). Valentines Mansion, along with part of the Town Hall and the Sir James Hawkey Hall are part of a number of buildings which are hired out for events to generate income.

We are keen to speak to potential providers across the leisure and culture market to answer the questions set out below.

Please contact Rose Urban via email: rose.urban@redbridge.gov.uk to arrange an appointment with the team here.

Please consider these questions which we explore when we talk to providers:

Based on the above outline of services, in four key service groupings of Leisure, Libraries, Parks and Culture, if a tender were to go out for all these services in a single package would you be interest in bidding?

If not would you be interested if the opportunity were available to bid to run some but not all of these service groupings?

If so, which groups of services would you be interested in bidding for?

Please consider, and explain, if you would consider the opportunity as part of a consortium and if so which service areas you might consider?

What would be your preferred length of contract, 5, 10 or 15 years and why?

Would you be able to bring capital investment into the assets to improve services?

If you did that how would you seek to achieve a return on investment?