UKC

Hi,

Can someone explain to me why Martyn Freeman, CEO of the Westway Development Trust, a charity, has doubled the charges for 7 year old children to use his facilities. Last term (finishing last Sunday), the trust charged £90 for a child to attend a class of 4-6 for a 90 minute session. The trust is now charging £175 for the same session. Of this, there is a £50 surcharge for children that love outside Kensington & Chelsea. I.e. children from Brent, a much poorer neighbourhood, have to pay for the privilege of attending a session in a sports centre 500 yards outside their borough.

My child has gained massively from the confidence he has gained from climbing. It is appalling that a charity has hit the youngest hardest in financial terms. It is a great centre for climbing but terrible in terms of grabbing money.

Rob

In reply to RobMillar:
Rob - I think there are some errors in your figures? You are right that £175 is outrageous for a 90 minute climbing session. But so is £90!
Are you talking about a charge for a whole series of sessions?

P.S. I can't explain - maybe Mr Freeman can?

In reply to RobMillar: Its probably something to do with his salary that in the year to March 2010 was between £110 - £120k. More details here
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ScannedAccounts/Ends27/0001123127_ac_2...

In reply to RobMillar: god bless charities

In reply to RobMillar: Are you sure £90 for a 90 min session is right? It's just I used to go to my local wall in Sheffield and at the kid's club it was about £8-10 for 2 hours, even if the price hadn't changed it's still a hell of a lot for a relatively short session.

In reply to mountainsheep:

I wonder if it was subsidised by the Councils, and that subsidy's been cut for this financial year? Ie Trust has put up cost to customer to maintain it's income.

Sounds mighty steep to me, but nothing similar to compare it to up here anyhow.

In reply to mountainsheep:

I read it as £90 for up to 6 kids, which seems expensive to my northern sensibilities, but accepting higher London costs, not outrageous.

In reply to Carolyn:

I assume that although the organisation is a charity, it is an arm length leisure provider for the local authority, a not for profit. Or as the MD or a similar organisation sat 20 yards from me would say "we make a profit, it is just what we choose to do with it that matters".

It is likely that they will have had to offer up some quite considerable savings to the local authority that part funds them, our provider has had to cut £1m and has put prices up by 10%. In this case it does seem excessive.

In reply to The New NickB: Oh ok that makes more sense but that's still £15 each if you 6 kids splitting it evenly (still not cheap) and it seems mad to double it.

In reply to RobMillar: I am part of a Dad's club which was initially run by the local Sure Start centre. As part of the cuts it got axed but this wasn't too much of an issue. The committee banded together, applied for funding and got it. We now run the club as an autonomous group making our own decisions and paying the Sure Start centre rent. It works really well.

Why not do something similar?

In reply to mountainsheep:

They don't want to run that particular service, when demand drop, which no doubt it will at those prices, they can make an argument for stopping running it.

In reply to RobMillar:

i believe it is £25 as an adult for an hour (possibly hour and half) session. they do loads of "drop-in" sessions that cost less than fiver, as well as various clubs. i believe private tuition for children is £30 an hour. reading what you have written surely £90 for 1 child for 1 90 minute session can't be right?

I'm not arguing that you are wrong as obviously you know what you have paid. However I pay a monthly charge to use westway and find £40 to be a very good deal. Gym membership at most gyms in london is usually more than that and they are nowhere near as fun.

Perhaps finding instructors suitable for children or insurance that covers children raises the prices that much higher? Or as someone else has mentioned the demand is low? I personally find that hard to believe, as I end up cleaning luminous bubble gum off of my rock shoes at least once a week (incidently, it doesn't help you climb as much as you might expect)

In reply to The New NickB:

Their annual report says they've been around for 40 years, so I don't think they're one of the bunch created in the last few years. But I suspect they do plenty of work under contract.....

In reply to Carolyn:

I believe the Westway charity is an odd example - it does get money from local authorities, but the bulk of its cash comes from being a landlord to an extensive property portfolio. Basically it's a property company set up 40 years ago when the Westway was ploughed straight through the area for the benefit of affected communities in K&C, with an annual 'income' of about £6m and assets of £25m. To all intents and purposes though, it has much of the functionality of a local authority, but with very little of the accountability.

It certainly pays its CEO a decent local authority rate!

In reply to RobMillar:

Is RobMillar just some hit'n'run troll, registering so that he can have a go at someone?

Although it's not clear what the problem is, someone has asked him to explain his figures, he's decided not to return to the thread, not even a few minutes after posting!

Bears all the hallmarks of drive-by.

In reply to winhill:

Put a www dot in front of this

westwaysportscentre.org.uk/climbing/?contentID=178&parentID=175 (can't post links)

The figures he's referring to are here - £175 per term. Someone else can divide it by 12 or whatever and tell us if that represents reasonable value.

In reply to winhill:

yeah he hasn't returned, im still somewhat sceptical on the figures he gave

i think westway has great value for money, especially considering the frequency with which they change the vast numbers of routes

my only gripe is with the heaters (which are still on). i break more of a sweat belaying than i do climbing!

£14.58 a session based on that, how long is a session? I can see somebody being quite miffed by a near 100 percent cost increase though if it did used to be £90.

In reply to Martin Hutchinson:

Yes, I'd been on the site but it doesn't say what a 'term' is.

(Also doesn't mention residency etc either).

In reply to winhill:

Term lengths are something of a moveable feast, but easy enough to look up, I guess, and normally around the 12 mark.

This bit from the page covers residency:

"Price
£120 per term for children from Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC)
£175 per term for those from outside area of Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC)"

In reply to Martin Hutchinson:

Ah,, I clicked around a bit and didn't see the wjcc prices.

A funny thing happened though, I found the price list on google docs and when you load quickview it seems to come up with the 2010 price list, or a different version from the current 2011 list, that shows the price as £90 for residents of RBKC and £175 for non-residents, as per OP. In which case it looks like possibly the non-resident price has stayed the same and the residents price has gone up.

If the OP was only charged £90 perhaps this was a mistake last time and he got a bargain or maybe they charge you the cheaper rate to get your kids addicted then double the price once you come back for more, evil drug dealer stylee.

In reply to winhill:

Most likely just a Council subsidy that's disappeared rather than evil drug dealer offers, I'd suspect! We can get local residents card that gets us swimming cheap, and I'm sure other places have similar schemes. But many will have been cut this financial year......