General Election Leaflet - Broomhill Pool (front page)

GENERAL ELECTION

IPSWICH

THURSDAY MAY 6TH 2010

PLEASE VOTE TO KEEP THE POOL AS A POOL

DON'T LET THE POOL SITE BE SOLD OR LEASED OFF

JUST AS A GENERAL RECREATIONAL FACILITY

VOTE FOR FULL RESTORATION OF THE LIDO

SALLY WAINMAN

INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE IPSWICH

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.

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."

Success for Woodgreen Pool in Banbury

Campaigners for the Woodgreen Pool in Banbury will have the pleasure of seeing their efforts come to fruition on Thursday 30th July when this lido re-opens.

The Woodgreen Pool closed in 2002 (the same year that Broomhill Pool closed); supporters of the Banbury Pool fought hard for many years to convince Cherwell District Council that re-opening Woodgreen would benefit the area and finally in 2007 the Council's attitude veered round to this point of view.

Prince's Regeneration Trust meet today - Broomhill on the agenda?

The Prince's Regeneration Trust meet today (February 11th 2009) and hopefully Broomhill Pool will be on the agenda. The Trust has declared its support for Cleveland Pools, the only Georgian Lido in Britain and it would be a wonderful step if Broomhill Lido could also secure their interest.

Updates as available.

Will 2009 see victory for Broomhill Pool campaign?

This is the seventh year of a campaign to save Broomhill Pool in Ipswich and certainly the most urgent.

Ipswich Borough Council are the owners of this Grade II Listed lido and, until recently, have been content to leave the site simply derelict, since its closure in the autumn of 2002.

In the second week of December 2008, however, reports appeared in the local newspapers stating that the Council were planning major investment in their swimming facilities. This "investment" included the revamp of some very old news that nearly £4 million would be spent on the Crown Pools complex: this money had in fact been voted through early in 2005 and was originally part of a detailed and rolling programme of improvement to spend £1million a year on Crown Pools. Most of this money was never actually spent because IBC wanted to explore the option of building a completely new 50 metre Olympic pool. That plan has now been shelved and the £4 million will now be resurrected to improve the complex.

Fore St Baths in Ipswich will receive £300,000 for refurbishment - a reprieve for this pool, as it was earmarked for closure if the new 50 metre pool idea had been actioned.

The "good news" about refurbishments for Crown Pools and Fore St Baths was very cleverly used to deflect attention from the "health and safety" measures outlined for Broomhill Pool. These consisted of draining the pool, removing the diving boards and replacing the water with some innate material like foam. Indeed , this promotion of a "massive makeover" for the swimming pools of Ipswich was done so effectively that even the BBC website has reported that IBC have "pledged to spend over £100,000 on repairs" at the Broomhill Lido.

It takes a far closer inspection of the Pools Devpt Options report to realise that the Council are intending to dump £55,000 worth of sand and £20,000 worth of granular infill in the pool and that Listed Building Consent has not been sought for this.

The English Heritage website offers advice on all aspects of managing Listed Buildings

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.19378 so there is no excuse for the Council's failure to consult them.

Without a doubt, the move to fill the pool in (voted through on 16th December 2008) represents by far the greatest threat to restoration hopes during this long-fought campaign.

The Sunday Telegraph spoke of Prince Charles' wish to save Britain's heritage during the credit crunch, through the work of the Prince's Regeneration Trust, so I have e-mailed the Trust in the hope that they may be able to support efforts to save the Ipswich Lido.