Exeter city council leader explains swimming pool closure

'Nobody likes to close facilities'

The ‘prohibitive’ cost of running a community swimming pool in Exeter left the city council with no alternative but to close it.

Council leader Phil Bialyk (Lab, Exwick) said it would now be up to the local community and the pool’s owners the Northbrook Trust to see if it could keep going.

The decision was taken by the city council last month, with Cllr Bialyk saying it boiled down to ‘cold, hard facts’.

The closure will save the council more than half a million pounds as it tries to make up a £3.5 million budget shortfall. It would cost £2.1 million to bring the 100-year-old pool up to modern standards, and £686,000 has already been spent on it.

The council will still have to carry out more repairs before handing the lease back to the Northbrook Trust.

Pool users mounted a vigorous protest campaign, saying the pool was a vital community asset, and maintaining that it would have attracted more people if it had been open for longer.

The pool’s opening hours do not include evenings or weekends.

It is used by a number of groups including a club specialising in swimming for the elderly. The council says the city’s other pools can provide the services the community needs.

Writing his monthly column on the city council’s website, Cllr Bialyk said: “We had to accept the recommendation of officers and take the very difficult decision to stop running Northbrook pool, due to its low usage and the high cost of bringing it up to modern standards.  

“Nobody likes to close facilities, but sadly the costs made it prohibitive. We have to prioritise and govern in the interests of the whole city. We continue to work with those impacted and with the local community to see if others could provide this service.   

“We will work with owners the Northbrook Trust, and the local community, to try to make this happen. But ultimately it will be for them to make this work.”