How would you spend £75 million?

The Government is to launch its Change4Life programme this autumn, spending £75 million on a social marketing campaign. This will encourage people to eat well, move more and live longer. I will save the Govt. some time and announce the headlines for 2009/10 where research will show that this scheme has had "little impact."

Spending money on actually improving the sports facilities that would help people to "move more" is not to their taste: (far better to fritter £75 million on nebulous projects), but it is certainly hard to see this kind of funding being thrown away when it could be used so differently.

eg a new pool for Minehead

a replacement pool for Ilford

restoration money for Broomhill Pool

roof repairs for the Matlock "Lido"

money for diving facilities open to all

funding for the outdoor pools in Beccles and Halesworth in Suffolk

money to re-open St Anne's pool in Fylde

money for Govanhill Baths in Glasgow

money for a new outdoor pool in Daventry bulldozed in January 2007 (pictured)

http://www.leisureopportunities.co.uk/LOemail/wider_newsdetail1.cfm?codeID=85113&CFID=16101294&CFTOKEN=24482771

Broomhill Pool Ipswich 1938 - 2002

The campaign to save Broomhill Pool in Ipswich has been a continuous one since the autumn of 2002. The fight to save our Olympic-sized lido therefore moved into its seventh year of operation at the beginning of September. This is a Grade II Listed building, built in 1938 on the north-west side of Ipswich, to match its companion lido, Pipers Vale, on the east side.

Pipers Vale was demolished in the 1980's but the bulldozers haven't yet had their day at Broomhill. Up-to-date info can be found on the main website http://www.savebroomhillpool.org/ run by the Broomhill Pool Trust and I have started a Broomhill Blog too.

The latest news is that the Heritage Lottery Fund rejected a funding bid from the Trust, because they felt that the site-owners (Ipswich Borough Council) needed to show greater commitment to such a substantial project. Talks are in process about the way forward.

Google "broomhill lido" or "broomhill pool" for background detail.

Matlock, Derbyshire : Sherwood Hall/Matlock Lido

Matlock in Derbyshire is a good place to start because it incorporates, unfortunately, far too many components of the struggle people are facing over trying to retain grassroots sports facilties.

In 2007, Derbyshire Dales District Council held a 'confidential' committee meeting to discuss the closure and sale of Sherwood Hall, the only sports centre in Matlock. There was outrage, at both the decision and the sneaky way it had been voted through. There was no consultation or warning and those who taught classes at Sherwood had already started taking bookings for the Autumn term.

The council's justification was that they needed to raise money for a new leisure centre, the CALC (Central Area Leisure Centre), but protesters pointed out that this was unlikely to materialize for at least three years: Sherwood Hall,they said, should remain open until the new centre opened. Their appeals fell on deaf ears and the Hall was closed. Many residents feared that their only swimming pool, the Matlock "Lido" would go the same way.

In July this year, 2008, their suspicions started to come true when the main pool had to be closed for roof repairs. It would re-open in August, said the Council, but "August" became "October" and now "October" has become February 2009.

Derbyshire Dales District Council is currently consulting (!) about the future of the pool: should they spend over £200,000 on major roof repairs or save the money for the CALC? The resounding response appears to be a great wish to get the Matlock pool repaired and re-opened as soon as possible.

Main source of information: Matlock Mercury
Follow up sources: http://www.swimclub.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=8480

The loss of public swimming provision

I've started this blog because all over Britain the public provision of swimming is gradually decreasing. The Government have known since at least 2001 that the stock of swimming pools in this country needed major investment. Their answer has been to close many of them, encourage the growth of private sector pools and change the way the number of pools is calculated.

In 2004, Richard Caborn, the then Sports Minister, started merging private and public pools together when asked how many pools there were in any given area or how many pools had closed. His stock answer was always that "more pools had opened than closed" and possibly this is true, if you add in pools in private health clubs, hotel pools, pools on military or naval bases etc as Mr Caborn did. However, the number of public pools was definitely falling.

To make matters worse local authorities were being encouraged to stand up and say that it was not their job to provide leisure facilities because the provision of leisure was discretionary and not statutory: legally, it was quite true, councils did not have to provide sports centres or swimming pools. This was a major departure from the former understanding that local councils would build, maintain and repair such centres for the benefit of the community. In the past, municipal pools had been a source of pride; now they became an easy source of "savings."

Campaigners appealing to the DCMS (Dept of Culture, Media and Sport) found themselves on the losing end of a 'piggy-in-the-middle' game, because the answer they received back was that local authorities were best placed to make these difficult decisions. Therefore as pools closed there was virtually no help from either local or central government sources.