Community has to throw learning pool a lifeline

11:22am Wednesday 3rd December 2008

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A SENIOR Herefordshire councillor has questioned the very existence of the authority if it cannot keep facilities like Hereford’s purpose-built schools learning pool open.

Opposition leader Councillor Terry James compared the £72,500 that the pool needed to the “enormous” sums currently being spent on refurbishing the council’s Brockington HQ.

“What is the point of Herefordshire Council if it can't keep facilities like the learning pool open? There are few things more important to taxpayers than the safety of their children,” Coun James told a cabinet meeting debating the facility’s future.

Cabinet threw the pool a lifeline and will wait to see if it can be saved by a community rescue bid.

Members were responding to a report from the children’s services scrutiny committee that said the pool should stay open, against a recommendation cabinet made in July.

Councillor Olwyn Barnett, cabinet member for social care, said spending thousands on the learning pool would be “a sheer waste of money trying to prop up an old building”.

Councillor Gerald Dawe told cabinet that the sum needed to re-open the pool was “small beer” when set against the authority’s overall budget and £94 million borrowing debt.

Councillor Sally Robertson, chairman of the children’s services scrutiny committee, told cabinet that a number of community led initiatives were now coming forward to keep the learning pool open.

Supporters of the pool have until Easter next year to float their ideas for its future.