A £9,000 consultation on the future of Holywell Mead in High Wycombe cannot be relied upon because protestors ‘hijacked’ it, a council chief said.

Councillor Katrina Wood said an organisation calling for the complex’s pool to be re-opened and opposition councillors had done the public a ‘disservice’.

Furious councillors hit back and said the probe was valid as it had carried out random telephone surveys and focus groups.

Conservative-run Wycombe District Council closed to pool last summer to save £66,000 a year. It said the facility was under-used and cost too much.

Holywell Mead pool Trust Steering Group proposed a plan run by volunteers, supported by Liberal Democrats, but this was turned down by WDC.

Cllr Wood said: “The results cannot be relied upon to indicate further patterns of use.”

Revealing the consultation cost £9,125 in consultants’ feeds, she said of campaigners: “They have done a great disservice by those who have hijacked it for their own ends.”

This brought murmurs of ‘hear hear’ from Conservatives, who hold the majority of seats on the council.

The consultation suggested various uses for the site including skating and bowling – but not a full adult pool. Only a children’s teaching pool was offered.

Focus groups named an open air pool when asked ‘what facilities are missing?’ while a pool was the most popular facility for respondents to a telephone survey, 20 per cent.

The general consultation also named swimming as the top choice – but Cllr Wood said there were questions over how much this represented peoples’ views.

Cllr Wood said: “We are by no means closing the door for some means of water use.”

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She spoke after resident Kim Pearce questioned her at last night’s council meeting on its plan.

Ms Pearce said the telephone survey listed the pool ‘without any pressure from the group’ but the pool had been ‘disregarded’ by the council (see link, bottom of story, for full question).

Pointing to demand from children, she said: “There is a lot of missing opportunity and Holywell Mead pool is an excellent location to capture this market.”

And she questioned why the council was prepared to spend up to £750,000 on moving Adams Park stadium and not keep open ‘this much cherished family facility’.

Paula Lee, a Lib Dem campaigner, asked: “How many times must the residents of High Wycombe make it clear to Wycombe District Council that they want a heated, open air swimming pool at Holywell Mead before Wycombe District Council starts to listen to them?”

Cllr Wood brought laughs of derision from the public gallery when pressed on why the pool was closed when 15,000 visited it in 2006.

Cllr Wood said: “2006 was a very unusual summer.”

Attendance had fallen since, she said. “The bottom line will have to be leisure facilities that are popular with residents and prove to be financially sustainable.”

Tory Cllr Ron Gaffney said the Lib Dems had ‘interfered’ with the exercise ‘for purely their own political reasons’.

He said: “They have jeopardised the public they purport to support and made this consultation of little value.”

Lib Dem Cllr Julia Wassell spoke out when Cllr Wood said ‘the data is unreliable’ and said her comment broke council rules that statements had to be ‘accurate and truthful’.

And Lib Dem Cllr Trevor Snaith told the Bucks Free Press: “They have got a good democratic response from the public.

“They have felt the sheer weight of public opinion and that is to re-open the pool.”

The consultation also asked people on how the adjoining building could be used.

This was used by the Environment Centre group, but a rise in rent demands from WDC meant the group left. It will be hired out for community use, the council said.

Click the links below for more stories on the plan.