GENERAL LEAFLET - BROOMHILL POOL (4th page)

WHY SAVE BROOMHILL POOL?

1. When Broomhill Pool opened in April 1938, the Mayor of Ipswich spoke about the joy of swimming; it is this joy that should be returned to the people of Ipswich, because there is nothing like the feeling of swimming in the open air, surrounded by the trees there and accelerating up the 55 yard length of that lido.

2. Concerns about obesity, heart failure, diabetes etc: There is national concern about obesity at the moment and organisations like Diabetes UK are publishing staggering figures about the overall cost of obesity and inactive lifestyles. Economically it makes far more sense to invest in prevention ie. proper funding for sports and leisure facilities. Therefore an initial (and one-off) outlay of one or two million pounds on Broomhill would be an absolute bargain in return for the expertise and dedication of a top quality pool operator.

3. Lidos have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years and successful restorations/refurbishments have taken place at a number of locations including the London Fields Lido in Hackney, the Brockwell Park Lido in Herne Hill and the Uxbridge Lido (owned by Hillingdon Council).

4. A restored Broomhill Pool would be an added attraction for university students who are only a ten minute cycle ride away from the lido!

GENERAL LEAFLET - BROOMHILL POOL (3rd page)

BROOMHILL POOL - A POOL FOR THE PEOPLE

I am standing in the General Election again because this Grade II Listed, Olympic-sized pool is a really valuable community resource and asset; it is beautiful architecturally and was designed to be a pool for all the people of Ipswich and not just for those in the higher income brackets. The Council claim there is already sufficient pool provision by using something called the Facility Planning Model created by Sport England; but this Model merges private, public and school swimming pools. For instance it allows the Council to count the indoor pool at the David Lloyd Health Club as part of the town's provision, even though the Council know full well that a monthly subscription there is beyond the reach of many residents.

The continued closure of the lido is not about lack of money or so-called "financial pressures". When the Council want to fund their own preferred heritage projects then these "pressures" don't seem to apply: eg they are pursuing a FOUR MILLION POUND project on Holywells Park, voting through £2 million in March 2008 alone to demonstrate "commitment" to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

By contrast, the Council's obvious lack of commitment to the lido's HLF bid (submitted by the Broomhill Pool Trust) drew stinging comments from Richard Powell, Regional Chairman of the HLF when he spoke on BBC Look East on 12th September: Ipswich Borough Council had promised a million pounds towards the lido's restoration, he said, but when the HLF looked at the bid that sum was not secured.

The HLF's fears were proved to be fully justified when Ipswich Borough Council neatly removed the million pound offer in December 2009 just at the point where it would have been most useful!

Broomhill Pool and the General Election - update March 2010

Back in the autumn of 2009, Ipswich Borough Council advertised for "Expressions of Interest" in the Broomhill Pool site, with a closing date of October 23rd 2009. The Council referred in the advertisement to recreational and leisure use for the site but, very cleverly, did not stipulate that the pool must be kept as a pool.

In December 2009 the Executive met and formally resolved to pursue Option 2 of a range of options ie pursuing this option of an outside operator for the Broomhill Pool site; they also removed the offer of the million pounds towards restoration - it was due to expire on 31st December 2009 and the Executive chose not to extend the offer past this date.

Despite the loss of the million pounds, the press coverage immediately after this was positively euphoric "Hopes high for future of pool" ran the headline in the Star Advertiser (December 24th 2009) "Hopes rose last week that Broomhill Pool could be open for business again in the summer of 2013. Members of the borough's Executive approved a proposal to hand over the lido to a private sector operator who would restore the pool and bring it back into use."

(There was zero mention in the glowing publicity that the Council might consider bids from operators who did not want to re-open the pool as a pool.)

However, the Council stated publicly in December 2009 that three operators wanted to pursue the matter and February 10th 2010 was given as the deadline for proposals to be submitted. I tabled Questions at the Ipswich Borough Council meeting in February about the timetable for considering the operators' bids and was told that a fourth operator had now emerged and that the deadline had been extended to the end of March. Therefore it is obviously going to be April, at the very earliest, before the bids are evaluated and this will effectively rule out a declaration before the General Election. This is not a good sign - if there was genuinely good news for Broomhill Pool then the Council Executive would undoubtedly be sharing that with the electors.

As a further twist to the tale the Cultural and Leisure Needs Analysis conducted by PMP Genesis and made public in February 2010 stated that the Council had not identified any private sector interest in managing the Pool:

Paragraph 3:56 Broomhill Pool, a 50 metre outdoor pool with Grade II status, closed in 2002 and has remained closed since. The Broomhill Trust is a significant lobbying group which aims to restore Broomhill Pool for full public use. A feasibility study commissioned by the Trust and completed in 2006 suggested that that the Pool can be restored, with 9 months work, at a cost of £3.9 million. The future of the Pool therefore relies on gaining further lottery and government funds and securing a suitable pool operator.

Paragraph 3:57 It is understood that Council discussions with private sector operators have not identified private sector interest in managing the Pool. This is in keeping with pmpgenesis' experience of the market where private sector operators are not typically interested in outdoor swimming pools since their financial sustainability is too contingent on the weather.

It needs to be particularly noted that the above statements are being made in a survey designed to carry the council through to 2015 and this will be treated as the official version of what those needs are and what the resources are. PMPGenesis have painted a negative view of the lido and there is no recognition at all that a number of lidos have been successfully saved and restored elsewhere in the country.

2010 General Election: Broomhill Pool

As the 2010 General Election comes sharply into focus, the future of the Grade II Listed Olympic-sized lido in Ipswich remains an ongoing issue for both the constituency of Ipswich and the Central Suffolk & North Ipswich one. Independent Candidates are likely to stand in both areas with Broomhill Pool as one of the main points of their electoral campaign.

The Conservative/Lib Dem Executive at Ipswich Borough Council were keen enough to criticise the Labour councillors for closing the pool in 2002, but after five years in power themselves have actually delivered nothing except a great deal of hot air and much dithering. Their much vaunted offer of a million pounds towards restoration (made just before the 2005 General Election) has been taken off the table, precisely at the moment when it might have been needed.

Councillor Judy Terry likes to point to the fact that they financed the Feasibility Study by voting through over £58,000 in August 2005, but this money was actually the £64,000 voted through by Labour for a Heritage Lottery bid in 2004 - the new Conservative administration simply allowed this money to be suspended in aspic whilst they did absolutely no work at all on a possible bid for Heritage Lottery funding. The Broomhill Pool Trust was therefore offered over £5,000 less for the Feasibility Study than the Council had awarded themselves.

Under the Conservative/Lib Dem alliance this heritage pool has simply suffered ongoing neglect and repeated vandalism whilst all the positive work has been done by the Broomhill Pool Trust and other campaigners.