LIB DEMS VOW TO CONTINUE WITH SWIMMING STRATEGY (York Liberal Democrats)

York Liberal Democrats <info@yorklibdems.org.uk>

LIB DEMS VOW TO CONTINUE WITH SWIMMING STRATEGY

October 3, 2009 12:00 AM

Liberal Demcorat Executive Member for Leisure, Culture and Social Inclusion, Councillor Nigel Ayre said the plans for York's first county standard pool at the University remain central to the Council's long term strategy on swimming and leisure.

Ahead of next week's Executive meeting, which will consider a report on the current situation with the city's swimming strategy, Cllr Ayre said, "The University Pool remains very much part of the future strategy for swimming."

"The economic downturn has meant the University has had to reprioritise some of it's capital funding and is therefore having difficulty at the moment meeting the existing funding gap."

"In the past there was funding available through the Sports Lottery Fund, but that has now been redirected to fund the 2012 Olympics. This has meant opportunities to meet the funding gap have been more limited than they would in the past."

"Officers have been very clear in telling us that a county standard pool would not be possible without partnership with the University and any new pool would likely expose council tax payers to the burden of a long term subsidy to keep the pool running."

Councillor Ayre said the Council was committed to continuing with it's strategy. He said, "While it may be easy for some to call for us to abandon the University option it is clear that any alternative would be much smaller and provide fewer facilities."

"It would be short changing the people of York to abandon the strategy half way through for short term opportunism."

"When Labour were in power the city had three pools in poor condition and planned to close one of these. The situation we found ourselves in required long term planning to provide the necessary facilities for the residents of York, Six years later Yearsley remains open and has been fully refurbished and the brand new pool at Oaklands is set to open this year, with reduced running costs and increased energy efficiency."

"It may be a challenge to get the University pool project moving forward given the economic circumstances, but that is no reason to abandon the plan now."

"The indicative plans drawn up by the University show that, on completion, the new pool will be a fantastic facility that people can be enthusiastic about."