DESPITE voting to refer the closure of Ships and Castles back to the people who made the decision, a warning has been issued not raise "false hope" for residents of Falmouth.

Members of Cornwall Council's scrutiny and overview committee voted on Monday to refer the decision to close the Falmouth's leisure centre back to cabinet after it was successfully called in by Labour councillors Jayne Kirkham and Laurie Macgowan.

But during the discussion before the vote, cabinet member Cllr Richard Pears told the committee that even if the decision was referred back to them the outcome would be the same.

"Nobody wants to be faced with a decision to close a leisure centre," he said. "That's certainly not why I came here. It's absolutely right that such a decision should come under the appropriate scrutiny so that members of the public can have confidence in the cabinet's decisions. It is part of the process and I have no issue with that.

"However I am very concerned that this process has been misinterpreted in the press and online and that may have given false hope to the people of Falmouth. That's very unfortunate."

He said at the cabinet meeting in March, the cabinet took their decisions in good faith based on the advice given to them by officers at the time and the information in the report presented to them by officers.

"We had no reason to doubt that advice and the additional papers presented today show that advice was correct as such could not come to any other conclusion," he said.

Responding to this statement Stephen Barnes (Lab) said: “I have been quite concerned by some of the things I have heard today, I don’t like to say this but Cllr Pears seems to have a closed mind on this. I am concerned that if we send this back to Cabinet he will say no, he has more or less said so.”

In a statement issued after the vote to call in the decision was made, councillors Kirkham and Macgowan issued a joint statement saying: "We are pleased that the cross-party Cornwall Council customers scrutiny committee agreed with our call-in of the Conservative cabinet’s decision to close Ships and Castles Leisure Centre without adequate evidence for their decision or taking all the relevant matters into account.

"The scrutiny committee unanimously asked the cabinet to re-consider their decision to close Ships and Castles, particularly bearing the following in mind:

"a) The cost of closure and security

"b) The impact on the old, the young and the disabled

"c) The environmental, social and economic impact of the decision, including the potential for partnership working between the bidders and the availability of alternative funding schemes.

"Cabinet will have to re-visit their decision and justify their conclusion at an emergency meeting this Wednesday at New County Hall.

"We are pleased that this incredibly important decision to close a public health facility serving over 40,000 of the people of Cornwall will now get the time, consideration and scrutiny that it deserves and should have had from the start.

"Cabinet members, as decision makers, should make sure they have all the relevant information in front of them this time."

The committee was told that the cost of closing the leisure centre would be £29,000 and would cost a further seven to eight thousand pounds a month to mothball the site.

READ NEXT:

Decision made on call-in on cabinet vote to close Ships and Castles

Cllr Loveday Jenkin said she was very concerned about the process as it excludes her division, Wendron, which is significantly effected by this decision.

"A lot of children from Wendron use that facility although, that's not part of this. I would like you to bear that in mind when thinking about your decision making process.

"The whole issue is mired in complexity and misunderstanding in the scoring process."

The cabinet will meet to consider the scrutiny committee's recommendation on Wednesday at 3pm.