Cardiff council is exploring new ways to operate its leisure centres and two major cultural venues as it seeks to reduce the £8m paid last year in subsidies for the facilities.

The authority announced in February it could no longer afford to subsidise the New Theatre and St David’s Hall, as well as its leisure facilities, and now wants to explore its options by going out to market.

St David’s is the Welsh national concert hall, while the New Theatre remains a popular venue, with the two sites having a combined economic impact of £38m a year on Cardiff, according to the council. It says the city’s leisure facilities attracted 2.2 million people in 2013/14.

A report by sports and leisure consultancy Max Associates commissioned by the council in January concluded that private sector partners or established trusts may be the best option for Cardiff.

The council is looking at several possibilities, including social enterprises, not-for-profit trusts, commercial management contractors or staff mutuals, and has reportedly already had a lot of interest.

If new leisure centre partners are found, the council wants them to be in place by next summer.

According to local press, at a pre-scrutiny meeting on the proposals last week, councillor Peter Bradbury said: “We want to see what level of savings we can get from the market, what degree of control we could have and how our staff would be treated. We’ve seen some positive examples of what we’re trying to do in other authorities. Only 28 per cent of leisure facilities in the UK are currently in-house. We are very much not the norm.”