9:48am Friday 24th April 2009
LEISURE supremo councillor Tony Green has said that Holywell Mead Open Air Swimming Pool in High Wycombe will not be bulldozed.
The decision by him and Wycombe District Council to close this facility is wrong and undemocratic. Once closed, it will never open again.
I was one of the original lifeguards at the pool in 1960 and later became a swimming pool manager and Diploma Member of the institute of Sport and Recreation Management, the premier professional organisation for the management of swimming pools and leisure centres. I therefore have a nostalgic and professional opinion on the pool’s closure.
It is modern by open air standards and one of the last to be built in the country.
Given the fact that there were once 400 outdoor public swimming pools in Great Britain and there are now only 100, they are a rare facility. If managed, promoted and advertised correctly, they are a ‘liquid asset’ and tourist attraction to any forward thinking council.
It appears that Wycombe District Council are trying to budget for savings costs of £2million.
The yearly running costs of £66,000 for the outdoor pool are therefore a ‘drop in the ocean’.
The cost to the average ratepayer to keep the facility open is only five pence per week.
Not much for them to pay and if they had been given a democratic vote, I know what the result would have been.
Wycombe District Council should find better ways of saving £66,000 per year and not follow other less forward thinking councils in acting like ‘lemmings’ and allow the pool to fall into oblivion. My message to Councillor Tony Green is that it is not too late to do a ‘U’ turn and reverse the wrong decision to close a rare facility.
Mike Birch, Holmer Green Road, Hazlemere.
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