The London Pools Campaign website has links to all the articles in their
excellent news section, including Will Self's piece in the Evening Standard.

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/


Jackie Spreckley
Malavan Media www.playedinbritain.co.uk
020 7794 5509 / 07880 747187


On 6/1/06 11:24 pm, "Virginia MacFadyen" <ginnymacf@...> wrote:

>
> --- broomhillsaved <broomhillsaved@...> wrote:
>
> did anyone see an article in the telegraph this week??
> there was one in the Guardian; was there also one in
> the Telegraph
> about pools - please put web reference on if there was
> one
>
> ---------------
> Yes, saw the Telegraph article and there was a lot
> else on the subject in the press.
>
> The Daily Mail also had a story on pool closures this
> week.
>
> See the Telegraph article in full below, followed by
> Daily Mail section on pool resources and 'private
> pools'.
>
> Apparently Will Self had a column last night
> (Thursday 6 January 2006) on pool closures in the
> Evening Standard. If anyone has the article and a
> scanner, please do scan it in since it doesn't appear
> to be available on the web.
>
> Also BBC news (text) has an article online at the
> moment, updated 3 January on 'pool closures hitting
> children'.
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4577460.stm
>
> So far Sports Minister Richard Caborn is still
> keeping a tight hold on the purse strings, despite the
> pressure and despite the vast sums being spent on the
> Olympics. According to the BBC report, he says that
> some old Victorian pools require an expenditure of £5
> per swimmer - which is 'unsustainable'. To quote
> Brenda Sullivan who is campaigning to keep the Kentish
> Town Baths open and was doing interviews on BBC London
> this week: "The Sports Minister should be grateful for
> these facilities and trying to keep them going
> especially in view of the future Olympics".
> -------------
> Daily Telegraph
> Closure of swimming pools 'is damaging our health'
> By Catriona Davies
> (Filed: 04/01/2006)
>
> Public swimming pools are being closed at an alarming
> rate by local authorities desperate to save money,
> campaigners warned yesterday.
> Duncan Goodhew, the former Olympic champion, said he
> had been contacted by an average of three groups of
> residents a month trying to save their local pool.
> Campaigners have complained that there is no central
> register of pool closures and no national strategy to
> prevent them.
> About 12 million people in Britain swim regularly and
> under the National Curriculum all children should be
> able to swim 25 metres by the age of 11.
> The Amateur Swimming Association has called on the
> Government to insist that local authorities make
> long-term strategies to replace pools that are being
> closed.
> David Sparkes, chief executive of the ASA, said: "The
> decisions to close pools are being taken for economic
> reasons rather than in a more strategic way.
> "We know that some pools have come to the end of their
> useful life and it makes sense to build modern
> facilities, but they are not doing that. Local
> authorities are closing pools and not replacing them.
> "Up and down the country there are a lot of pools
> closing but we don't know how many. We do know,
> however, that school swimming pools are vanishing at a
> rate of 10 per cent a year.
> "It is important for the health of the nation that we
> have a network of public swimming pools. We need to
> create a financial strategy that forces local
> authorities to take a long-term view."
> The London Pools Campaign, a group formed by six sets
> of residents trying to save their local pools, lists
> nine pools that have closed recently and 16 that are
> at risk in the capital alone.
> There have been campaigns to save pools in Bristol,
> Ipswich, Wolverhampton, Worthing and Shropshire.
> Max Calò, of the London Pools Campaign, said:
> "Swimming pool sites in London are worth a lot of
> money and the council accountants just see the money,
> not the pool.
> "Pools are badly in need of protection from the
> accountants. They are given targets to cut budgets, so
> unless something is safeguarded they will cut it."
> Goodhew said: "It seems to be an enormous problem.
> "We need to have a full review of swimming pools
> available for fitness and learning to swim as quickly
> as possible, and councils should be stopped from
> closing any pools until they have provided somewhere
> else.
> "I don't have a problem with closing pools that are
> old if there's another one built first. Otherwise you
> deny a generation of the right to learn to swim."
> Richard Caborn, the sports minister, told the BBC that
> many swimming pools were unsustainable because they
> cost £5 per swimmer in subsidies. He said: "We have
> some very old facilities which are costly to run.
> "There are more facilities now than there have been
> for many years. There are now more in the private
> sector than the public sector."
> However, Goodhew said that many private pools, such as
> those in hotels, are unusable for fitness or for
> teaching children to swim.
> Others are in private gyms, available only to members
> who pay subscriptions.
> Kate Hoey, the former sports minister and Labour MP,
> has argued against swimming pool closures.
> She wrote in The Daily Telegraph: "All the fine words
> about tackling obesity and the fitness of the nation
> proclaimed by politicians are worthless if not
> translated into resources to keep our swimming pools.
> "Decades of cutting corners in maintaining the pools
> built by municipal authorities who understood civic
> pride has resulted in decrepit, crumbling and now
> closed pools.
> "Each pool closure is a local scandal but add up all
> the closures and it becomes a national scandal that
> can no longer be ignored."
> Brenda Humphreys, secretary of the London Schools'
> Swimming Association, said: "My greatest desire would
> be for every child in every school to be taught to
> swim, but that isn't possible. I teach in Hackney,
> where a high proportion of schools are not having
> lessons or are having to go outside the borough.
> "The London Olympics is going to be embarrassing for
> us because we don't have enough swimmers."
>
> ----------
> Daily Mail 04.01.06
>
> Pool resources
> Who can forget the electrifying excitement when London
> was named host city for the 2012 Olympics and the
> confident predictions it would herald a renaissance of
> sport in this country?
> Some renaissance. We now learn that public swimming
> schools are going the same way as playing fields -
> sold off for re-development. Olympic medallist Duncan
> Goodhew says three pools a month are facing closure,
> an attrition rate every bit as alarming as the loss of
> playing fields.
> It is fatuous of the sports minister Richard Caborn to
> claim there are more pools available than ever before
> in private(and pricey) health clubs. What good are
> they to the average school child?
> But then Mr Caborn's grasp on reality has always
> seemed slender - he claimed yesterday that the
> scandalous depletion in playing fields (true, started
> by the Tories, but with 2,540 concreted over since
> Labour came to power) has been reversed - an assertion
> immediately contradicted by the National Playing
> Fields Association.
> Every child should be taught to swim, both for safety
> and fitness. Fewer and fewer will have the opportunity
> to do so unless the decline is halted.
> Having secured the 2012 Games, why does this country
> seem so intent on producing a generation of couch
> potatoes?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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