Community swimming pool pleas for funds to reopen

Julian Frost said the charity trust that ran the pool was now drained of funds and needed about £10,000 to get the facility reopened

The grandson of a man who converted a former cinema into a Cambridgeshire town's swimming pool has appealed for donations to get it reopened.

The Empress pool in Chatteris opened in 1964 after local builder Percy Rooke bought and converted the building.

The site was forced to close in 2023 after structural issues were discovered.

Mr Rooke's grandson, Julian Frost, said thousands of pounds had been spent by the charity that runs the building to get it back open again, but it needed about £10,000 more in order to open the doors.

Thousands of Fenland residents have learned to swim at the pool

"We are getting so close to opening the pool again," said Mr Frost, 43, a trustee of the pool.

Over the last 20 months major works have taken place within the building, but the final work includes reinstating the holes around the pool and encasing the steel posts.

The Empress Swimming Pool Trust has set up its own fundraising page on GoFundMe to help pay for the work.

The site, which is the Fenland town's only public swimming pool, has given many generations of local children somewhere safe to learn to swim.

"Before the pool, youngsters learnt to swim in drains and rivers, which is obviously not ideal," said Mr Frost.

"I learnt to swim in the Empress and so did all my brothers."

The pool has had supporting steel pillars replaced "at a huge cost to the trust", said Mr Frost

Mr Frost, who is a serving RAF officer, said he was doing all he could to raise money to finish off the last few jobs on the facility.

Local businesses were helping with donations, he said, and Peterborough United recently offered the trust a signed football, which made another £300.

"If we can get together about £10k in the next few weeks, I reckon we can be open again in January next year," he added.

The exterior of the Empress cinema in the 1950s, which became the Empress swimming pool in 1964

Chatteris Town Council said the Empress pool trust had been invited to submit an application for grant funding, which would be considered by the town council at its meeting on 7 October.