Save our Pools - West Wiltshire will fight - petition set up
All of West Wiltshire's swimming pools could be closed in the next few years in plans announced by Wiltshire Conservatives.
Wiltshire Liberal Democrats are mobilising to fight the plans. "If the old District Council, for all its faults, could keep a swimming pool in each of the towns then there's no reason why the new mega-council shouldn't be able to do the same - what about the promised savings and economies of scale? The answer is because the political will and the financial capability was there - the new Tory council has neither," said a spokesperson for the Lib Dems.
The pools in Trowbridge, Melksham and Warminster will go, as will those in Bradford and Westbury unless the local community agrees to take them on.
First to go will be Melksham Blue Pool and the Christie Miller Sports Centre in 2013. The sports centre at Clarendon will shut in 2017 as will Castle Place Leisure Centre. If no-one wants to take them on Bradford and Westbury Pools will close at the same time.
Warminster residents keep their pool and sports centre until 2021, but after that date there could be no public swimming pools left in West Wiltshire.
The scale of destruction is less violent outside of West Wiltshire, with only Amesbury pool to be closed in 2023, though other facilities are offered for transfer, which could mean closure if no local groups are able to take them on.
The pools and sports centres could be replaced by what's described as a 'campus' in Melksham, Trowbridge and Warminster.
For details of what WC intends these to look like see
Residents are concerned that whereas closing a facility is easy and can be done overnight, building a new complex is difficult and expensive and can take years to achieve, or can be abandoned if the process gets too onerous.
We need people to help with the campaign to save the leisure centres - if you'd like to get involved please get in touch now.
Bradford councillor Malcolm Hewson has set up an on-line petition at http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/savebradfordonavonpool
The petition has over seven hundred signatures
Westbury campaigners have set up a website at http://www.savewestburypool.org.uk/
The measures were agreed as a basis for consultation at the WC Cabinet meeting on July 27th. Speaking at the meeting Mark Barrett of Calne Leisure Centre said Calne was an example of how a centre could be successfully run by local volunteers, and asked for the continuing support of the council. Cricklade Leisure Centre is also keen to 'go it alone'. However Mike Parker of Westbury said that 'devolvement' - the word invented by the council to mean handing over the centres to local people - felt more like abandonment.
On behalf of Wiltshire Council portfolio holder Stuart Wheeler has written to claim that Westbury and Bradford pools will not automatically close if nobody wanted to take them on. "At no point have we suggested that those facilities would necessarily close," he says. "The council will consider its options at an appropriate time in the future if it transpires that sustainable alternative management arrangements cannot be agreed." He also points out that the proposals are currently out for consultation and WC cabinet will review the outcome of the consultation later this year.
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Your comments:
"Today it was announced that Wiltshire Council have plans to reduce the number of leisure facilities in the county from 23 to 11. This means the closure of 5 local swimming pools and leisure centres concentrated around West Wiltshire and the transfer of 8 more to the control of community groups (if such groups can be created in time). The council have been sitting on this for 18 months and the first closures will be in 3 years. They have given the community as little as 5 years to raise the money. The council are taking away the leisure facilities for approximately 100,000 people. This not only affects the general public but also schools, swimming and sports clubs. The council have said there is no money to run them, but these are very popular venues and are an asset to each town. The council seem to have enough money to make improvements to their council offices. Not only are they updating their furnishings in the main council offices in Trowbridge, but they are also updating a former school in Melksham where they will be temporarily based whilst these improvements are taking place. All at a huge cost to the humble tax payer (who would probably never even enter the council offices). The council reckon they are going to make 3 super duper leisure hubs to replace these leisure facilities, but I won't hold my breath as they still haven't decided what to do with the old Tesco site in the centre of Trowbridge which has laid in rubble for the past 20 years."
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"Wiltshire Council operate like an army of occupation ... asset stripping and taking the loot home to embellish their homeland. The naked parochialism and pork barrel politics is unbelievable and immoral."
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"With regard to the "devolution" of the Leisure Centres by Wiltshire County Council, I believe this word is just to disguise the fact that they are abandoning them."
I must express alarm at their maths. Jane Scott, leader of Wiltshire Council, tells us they would need to spend £93million over the next 25 years to maintain the 23 Centres, which works out at £920,000 per year or £40,000 per year per centre. Doesn't sound so bad now does it? James Gray MP thinks it's £93million per year - Mr Cameron don't let him near any areas of fiscal responsibility!
For many years we all have been urged by governments of all colours to exercise and now Wiltshire Council is trying to wash its hands of any involvement.
I then read in the Western Daily Press that WC failed to collect a total of £7,178,000 in Council Tax! If you express that over 25 years as Jane Scott has cost of the Leisure Centres, the council would miss out on a staggering £179,450,000!
That certainly makes Leisure Centre spending look puny. I suggest Councillor Scott and her cabinet concentrate on getting that money in, sort out our roads, social services etc and start to provide us with the excellent service they promised us before doing away with the District Councils.
The same District Councils that now seem to have done so much better than Wiltshire Council!
(Calne resident)