Broomhill Pool set to lose its million pounds?

On 15th December 2009 the Executive of Ipswich Borough Council will meet and one of the items on the agenda is Broomhill Pool. The Council will consider an all options report on this 1938 lido, but one of the main recommendations is that the offer of a million pounds towards its restoration should be withdrawn. One of their justifications is that there is already sufficient 'water space' provision in Ipswich.

A survey by Torkildsen Barclay in 2006 established that there was in fact under provision of public swimming pools in Ipswich. This situation was going to worsen as Ipswich grew and expanded. The council were happy to accept that report at the time, because they were wanting to try and acquire a new indoor 50 metre pool for the town. The Torkildsen Barclay report considered only the public pools in Ipswich: Fore St Baths and Crown Pools (Broomhill Pool was excluded from any consideration because it is an open air pool and therefore "weather dependent" as consultants like to say.)

This autumn a new cultural and leisure survey was conducted by PMP Genesis, but it took place very quietly; it wasn't mentioned in the Council's monthly magazine The Angle, it wasn't promoted in the local newspapers. This survey established (apparently) that amazingly there was now sufficient water space in Ipswich! This was achieved by including all the available private provision (eg the indoor pool at David Lloyd's health club) AND the public pools.
The Council can now justify their recommendation to strip Broomhill Pool of the million pounds restoration money previously pledged.

The above situation is a very good example of how surveys and statistics can be used to come to any conclusion that a council desires! When they want to build a pool, then Ipswich is suffering from under provision of water space; when they want to damage the chances of an Olympic-sized Grade II Listed swimming pool ever being restored, then hey presto a £21,000 survey can magically show that the town now has an over provision of swimming pools.

As the old saying goes: " There are lies, damned lies and then there are reports on Broomhill Pool."