Anger as Exeter swimming pool closure confirmed

Protesters 'disgusted and let down'

Exeter’s Northbrook swimming pool is to close.

The decision was taken by the city council’s executive committee last night despite months of campaigning by pool users to save it.

Council leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) said it boiled down to the “cold, hard facts” that the pool is under-used and too expensive to run. The closure will save the council more than half a million pounds as it tries to make up a £3.5 million budget shortfall.

Cllr Bialyk told the meeting: “We have had sleepless and troubled times over this.”

Director of city development Ian Collinson said it would cost £2.1 million to bring the 100-year-old pool up to modern standards, and £686,000 had already been spent on it. The council will still have to carry out more repairs before handing the lease back to the Northbrook Trust.

He said the council would find the best possible ways of helping Northbrook’s users make use of the city’s other pools.

Cllr Ruth Williams (Lab, Mincinglake and Whipton) said the council had worked hard without success to boost the number of people using the pool, and Cllr Duncan Wood (Lab, Pinhoe) added: “I know it’s extremely important to those who use it, but it’s a very small proportion of those who use our leisure services.

“This is a difficult and necessary decision that I do not want to make but have to.”

But Cllr Diana Moore (Green, St Davids) told the meeting: “The community feels that the council is washing its hands of the needs of the pool users.”

The city council agreed to work with the community and the Northbrook Trust on the possibility of the pool becoming community-run. Cllr Bialyk said the council would be doing all it could to help with that process.

The executive committee voted unanimously to shut the pool.

After the meeting protesters, who wore black clothing to the meeting, said they were ‘disgusted’ and feel let down by the council.