North Huron council will begin to examine the impact of a controversial increase to recreation fees that was implemented over a year ago.
In November 2023, council approved changes to the fees for the fitness centre and pool at the Wescast Community Centre, that did away with annual memberships and basically tripled the price for users.
There hasn't been any follow up report since the changes, prompting Councillor Mitch Wright to issue a notice of motion, requesting one from the Director of Recreation.
"There were some pretty significant fee increases to rec and fitness programming in 2023, so I'm just looking to have a report done up on it understanding how it affected our bottom line and also the impact we had with regard to memberships at the Complex," he said.
North Huron budgeted for a 53 per cent decrease in fitness program and facility revenues in 2025 compared to 2024. This came a year after budgeting for a 25 per cent decrease in aquatic program and pool revenues.
Councillor Wright also put forth a second notice of motion asking staff to prepare a follow-up report on the different cost recovery options for fitness programming.
Wright said as it currently stands, the Town policy doesn't help the creation of new programs.
"Right now, each program has to be standalone, self-sustaining with regards to cost recovery. I think it's tough to get new programs up and running and be full cost recovery right away, because it usually takes a while to build membership," he said. "The idea is (staff) doing a report to come up with other options so it's not so cut and dry program by program."
Both notices of motion passed and reports will return to council at a later date.
