Herefordshire Council supports ideas for re-opening a LEA pool

Herefordshire Council has welcomed proposals for a community-led, long-term business plan designed to reopen a local education authority pool that was closed in 2007 for safety reasons.

The proposals were put to the council's cabinet meeting today (20 November) by Councillor Sally Robertson, chair of a committee that scrutinises children's services in the county, who said the community of South Wye, Hereford, had lots of ideas for how the pool could be repaired and run.

The cabinet also heard that the council has bid for government funding to support its plans to provide free swimming for children under 16 and people over 60.

"The costs of providing free swimming are still significant for the local authority", said leader of the council Roger Phillips, "but it is the most effective way of encouraging people to learn to swim and use our pools to take exercise to improve their health and wellbeing".

He added that free swimming, combined with a focus on the maintenance of four swimming pools in the county, including one in Hereford near to the closed LEA pool, would ensure Herefordshire was serving the needs of local people. But he welcomed ideas from the community that could lead to the LEA pool reopening.

The idea for a community-driven business plan for the LEA pool has echoes of a similar, successful scheme when a new pool was built in Leominster in 2006. A report will be brought back to cabinet to give time for the views of the community to be sought on a plan that addresses the safety and safeguarding issues at the LEA pool, together with revenue and capital costs.

The LEA Pool has been dogged by long-term structural faults and leakage, will cost nearly £300,000 to repair and make energy efficient, with ongoing costs topping £137,000 a year, says an independent study. Currently, school swimming lessons are provided for the majority of primary schools in clean and well-maintained pools in the county run by the council's partner Halo.