9:19pm Thursday 26th February 2009
By Staff Reporter
HOLYWELL Mead open air swimming pool will be closed, a meeting of Wycombe District Council decided tonight.
There were angry scenes as the Conservative-controlled council approved its cabinet's budget recommendations, including the closure.
The closure of the 52-year-old pool on The Rye in High Wycombe is one of a series of cash-saving cuts, including redundancies.
The council has argued the pool is under-used and costs too much to maintain, £66,000 a year.
A Liberal Democrat councillor put forward an alternative budget which would keep the pool open but this was defeated 45 to nine.
The council also approved a council tax increase of 3.2 per cent for its share of the bill, about 10 per cent.
This will see the full bill between £1,390 and £1,486 for an average band D property.
A full list of costs for different bands and areas will be placed on this website on Friday.
Liberal Democrat leader Brian Pollock put forward a revised budget that would give £39,000 to run the pool for an extra year.
He said this would meet the need to provide “exercise and sport for the needs of our residents”.
He said: “If after a year we have in fact lost people using the pool then so be it, the opportunity has been given.”
The call – which would also continue council funding to the Environment Centre and cut the WDC council tax rise to three per cent – won applause from the public.
This saw chairman Roger Wilson say: “I remind members of the public that they are here to listen to the democratic debate.”
When this brought laughs from the gallery he quipped: “You may laugh at some of my jokes but not at anything else.”
The Lib Dem call was supported by the Labour group. Leader Margaret Draper said: “The whole concern at the moment across the nation is the health of our population.
“Clearly there is a need to retain such facilities.”
Arguments that the pool was under-used were “perverse” she said as a facility such as the pool could “encourage” people to take up exercise.
Yet councillor Tony Green, who has cabinet responsibility for leisure facilities, said it was the “easiest thing in the world” for opposition to criticise a budget.
To cries of dismay from some of the public he said: “You are just pandering to a little bit of public opinion.”
He said: “I do accept that there are many people, that is probably in the hundreds and lows thousands, who see the Holywell Mead swimming pool as an important facility in the district.”
Yet he said of 2,500 names collected by Lib Dem petition and a South Bucks Star campaign: “The reality is that is not enough even if they did use the pool.
“It isn’t enough to make it economically viable.”
It was “much more sensible” to focus council cash on rebuilding Wycombe Sports Centre, which has been postponed because of the credit crunch, he said.
Cllr Green said of Holywell Mead: “It needs work doing to it, it is not an outstanding facility, it is not one that frankly I am proud of.”
Yet he said the council was “open to the future of that facility” and pledged it will “remain in the community”.
Fellow cabinet member Jean Teesdale said she had to support closure with a “heavy heart”.
She said she held “great nostalgia” for the facility but said: “When you really sit down and thought about it, how often in the years it has been open have I used this pool?”
Cllr Teesdale said she could count the number of occasions on one hand.
She said: “They think it is a fabulous thing but they don’t use it.”
Keeping it open would be “putting off the inevitable” she said.
And she said: “We should be honest to the people we represent, not pander and try and score political points, not pander to little whims”.
Council leader Lesley Clarke attacked the Lib Dem plan to use money taken from grants for housing and business initiatives to keep the pool open.
These grants could only be used for these purposes, she said.
And she said the £39,000 would not cover the yearly running costs, which were £66,000.
After the decision was taken High Wycombe resident Suzanne Grant, who has used the pool since it opened in 1957, said the move was “disgusting”.
Mrs Grant, who attended the meeting, said: “It is horrendous. How can they say they want to encourage people to do sport?
“It is typical Wycombe District Council.”
The budget also a move to make 27 roles redundant, though this may see staff re-deployed, Cllr Clarke said, while 18 vacant posts will not be filled.
A further 16 will see a change in employment terms and conditions.
This, the pool closure and other cuts such as closure of under-used public toilets, yet to be named, are to close a £1.68m gap in the budget.
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