Link4Life celebrates first year

Cafe Life at Touchstones

Link4Life, the Rochdale Boroughwide Cultural Trust, celebrates its first full year of operation this month.

The trust provides sports, leisure, culture and entertainment services throughout the borough as part of a 15 year partnership with Rochdale Borough Council.

Key priorities of the Trust include improving facilities, working in partnership, improving the health and well-being of the community, increasing levels of participation, supporting the needs of children and young people, providing new and innovative cultural activities and driving forward quality and continuous improvement.

Managing Director Craig McAteer said the first year has been fast moving and seen some significant achievements: “These have included £½ million of investment in fitness services for adults and young people and we have worked closely on this with Rochdale Borough Council’s Youth Services and the Heywood, Middleton & Rochdale PCT.

“The new Middleton Arena is currently under construction and will be open by the end of the year and over £30 million has been committed by the Borough Council on capital expenditure for 2008-2011 across the Borough.”

“There has been good news for arts and heritage services with two centres receiving national accreditation from the Museums, Libraries, Archives Council and the award of ‘Outstanding contribution to Black Heritage’ for the ‘Fight to end Slavery’ exhibition at Touchstones Rochdale.”

“Finally, and arguably most importantly, the Trust has proven its ability to deliver improvements in sport, leisure and cultural services that will bring strong and lasting benefits for the people who live and work in the Borough of Rochdale.”

Mark Widdup, Head of Rochdale Borough Council’s Business Partnerships has responsibility for monitoring the performance of the Link4Life Trust. He said: “the work on both sides, to get the Trust up and running, was intended to put the company on a sound footing to succeed in its first year of trading. This has clearly been achieved and the progress made in the first 12 months has been impressive.”