Campaigners fighting to save Burnham-On-Sea’s closure-threatened swimming pool met this week to discuss a possible community bid to take on ownership of the facility.
Tom Ashton, Chairman of the Save Our Swimming Pool campaign group, met local Liberal Democrats Joe Leach and parliamentary candidate Tessa Munt (as pictured) to discuss how local residents could mount a community-led bid to take on the management of the Berrow Road pool if no commercial owner be found by the May 31st deadline.
Tom told Burnham-On-Sea.com after this week’s meeting: “It was very constructive. I feel that any campaign group fighting to save a swimming pool would not be fulfilling its role if it didn’t have a ‘Plan B’ in place. If Sedgemoor District Council’s Task Group fails to find a new owner we will have a fall-back plan.”
The comments came after he outlined how such a scheme might work financially during a speech at Wednesday’s special budgetary meeting of the district council.
“We’re proposing Sedgemoor puts aside £500,000 a year over the next five years to allow community groups to take over Burnham Pool and The Splash at Bridgwater,” he said.
“This would generate savings of £850,000 a year based on SDC’s original budget, and would provide enough funding for repairs to go ahead and allow a community-led management group to take on the day-to-day running of the pools. It could also mean car parks could no longer need to be sold off in Highbridge and Bridgwater.”
“It’s a fully-workable plan and already has a growing amount of support across the town,” he said.
“Obviously, we would prefer a commercial company to come forward to take on the management of Burnham pool, but if this doesn’t happen we are putting a ‘Plan B’ in place.”
Burnham-On-Sea.com reported last week how Sedgemoor District Council said it was making “promising progress” in finding a new commercial owner to take over the pool. A further update is due to be given on March 6th at 6pm in Burnham Community Centre.
RELATED LINKS:
Official ‘Save Our Swimming Pool’ website
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