Fusion Lifestyle, which runs Brockwell Lido, yesterday (28 November) declined to respond to requests from the Blog for details of a meeting over a £13m loan that it is trying to renegotiate.
A spokesperson said that the loan – which is due to be repaid in May 2026 – was just one issue that the organisation, which runs a total of about 60 leisure facilities, was dealing with.
At a meeting earlier this month, Mark Rogers, Fusion Lifestyle community and partnerships director, told a packed roomful of lido users that Fusion’s inability to reach agreement on repayment terms with the bank that made the loan was the reason why promised improvements and repairs at the lido had not been made.
Rogers said that what would happen was “partly a government decision, partly a bank decision”.
He continued: “But it’s one we’re actively trying to resolve, because its preventing us from being able to file our accounts, because we need a 12-month period where we have a going concern, and, at the moment, we’ve got a blocker of having to repay the Covid loan in May next year.”
Rogers told the lido event that a meeting with the bank to discuss the £13m loan was due to take place on 28 November.
Fusion Lifestyle, like all companies, is required to file details of its accounts with the governments’s Companies House. These will be a year overdue on 1 January 2026. The most recent Fusion Lifestyle accounts currently available on the Companies House website end at 31 December 2022.
The Fusion spokesperson said: “The meeting referred to at the AGM is part of many ongoing dialogues we are having with different stakeholders.
“We will, of course, continue to keep interested parties updated on matters of importance.
“Fusion, like many other organisations, is going through a process of ongoing dialogue regarding the Covid continuity loan offered by the government.
“The whole leisure and hospitality industry was dramatically affected by restrictions, closures and revenue losses and, as a result, it has taken time to recover and rebuild our charity.
“We will, of course, keep key stakeholders updated throughout the process, but it’s ‘business as usual’ at Brockwell Lido for the foreseeable, with no impact to the service we provide to the local community.”
The Blog had specifically asked, twice, for details of the meeting with the bank and its outcome.
Fusion Lifestyle runs the Lido via a lease from Lambeth council which expires in May 2031.
Donatus Anyanwu, council cabinet member for stronger communities, leisure and sport, told the meeting at the lido that, if the council needed to step in, “my assurance is we will”.
