Award winning Mildenhall Hub positive progress under scrutiny

Paid for by a partnership of public organisations and funding bodies, Mildenhall Hub is ground-breaking nationally as a One Public Estate Programme initiative providing modern facilities and easier access to services for the local community. It is innovative in bringing education, health, leisure and other public services together to work more closely and provide better outcomes, especially around health and wellbeing.

The report outlines the early achievements – including meeting the 10 objectives set for the project.

In addition, membership to the leisure centre has risen beyond expectations and close working with health has seen better outcomes for a range of people using the hub including journeys to hospital avoided for outpatient appointments. With new facilities, school attainment is also up and the number of people using their library card at Mildenhall has increased by nearly 80 per cent, with loans up by more 50 per cent.

Achievements highlighted in the report for the council-funded leisure facilities include:

• Membership of the leisure centre is up 127 per cent since opening against an estimate of around 60 per cent;

• This includes enrolment in the Swim Academy up by 100 per cent compared to an estimate of around 20 per cent. Overall use of the leisure facilities is up at least 60%; and

• 33 Park Run events have been hosted up to January 2023, attracting 2,946 attendances by 1,310 individuals.

Two integrated leisure and health pathways with NHS are also in place which target frailty and pulmonary rehabilitation (which includes Long Covid).

The hub has hosted the Sporting Memories initiative for older people, the Catch 22 Suffolk Positive Futures initiative to reduce anti-social behaviour and a place-based physical activity pilot with the NHS.

There is a cardiac rehabilitation programme in place using the leisure facilities while children attending the speech and language sessions also benefit by being able to go straight to the library to choose some books.

The environmental performance of the hub is also featured in the report. Among many renewable energy features are 741 solar panels saving over £40,000 worth of electricity and 140 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2022.  The building’s battery storage system has saved another 44 tonnes of emissions in that period.

Despite being built in the middle of the pandemic, the report highlights that the cost to the council of building its parts of the scheme rose by less than four per cent from early provisional estimates made in 2018.

But this is matched by higher than expected rents and estimated savings which means after two years, the hub looks on track to meet its break-even test for taxpayers by year five.

The report also highlights some of the learning taken from the first 20 months of seeing how the public use the building.

This includes looking at the use of drop-off and parking for people with disabilities as well as working with Suffolk County Council Highways to carry out a final audit on the main junction to the site.

Chair of Overview and Scrutiny, Ian Shipp, said: “This was a large investment, and the hub has had a significant impact on provision of public services in and around Mildenhall. I am looking forward to hearing first-hand about its first 20 months and, with the committee, look at what was expected, what has been achieved as well as lessons we may take forward, including future improvements now it is being used.”