Future of Hereford’s local authority swimming pool in the spotlight

Herefordshire Council's Children's Services Scrutiny Committee is advising the council to approve plans to repair and re-open St Martin's swimming pool.

The pool which is used by 38 local schools has been closed since December due to a problem with the boiler and other long-term structural faults involving water leakage. HALO has been providing temporary facilities to those schools programmed to use the pool in the spring term, although this has resulted in some disruption to public swimming.

Members of the council's Children's Services Scrutiny Committee met this week (April 21st) and discussed the cost of repairing the local authority pool which is estimated at £72,500. They talked about where the money could be found including the possibility of using section106 planning agreement funding earmarked for capital investment in education.

The committee heard how the running costs of the pool exceeded its annual income from hire fees, and that this gap had grown considerably over the last couple of years. With a projected overspend of £50,000 this year, members discussed the value of the pool to the local schools and community and what other options might be available to help meet these running costs.

After considerable debate, the committee agreed to recommend that the council should undertake repairs and re-open St Martin's Pool , once sufficient schools committed themselves for a three year period at a level of charge which would cover the net costs. Added to the recommendation was a need to review the financing of the pool to make sure it could operate within budgets.

Councillor Sally Robertson, chair of children's services scrutiny committee, said: "We had a good discussion about the future of the pool. Halo Leisure were praised by a number of people for helping our schools continue their swimming lessons at such short notice. However, the general feeling in the meeting was that the council needs to do all it can to reopen the St Martin's swimming pool as it is a dedicated learning pool and serves local schools and swimming clubs very well.

"The role of scrutiny is to make sure decisions made by the council's cabinet are well informed. The discussion we had will be fed back to the council's cabinet for a decision when it meets at the end of May."