Swimming pool repairs costing £1.2m approved

The council said the "strength of public support" had sparked a proposed package of repairs for the pool in Richmond

People have been warned to use or lose a swimming pool in a North Yorkshire town when it reopens after councillors agreed £1.2m worth of repairs for the site.

Richmond Swimming Pool shut in April after the partial collapse of a ceiling, and further investigations found the building needed extensive work.

North Yorkshire Council's executive approved the repairs at a meeting on Tuesday, but members heard that in addition to the work, the pool would cost over £400,000 in subsidies in the current financial year.

Gareth Dadd, the authority's deputy leader, said councillors would "do their bit" to encourage people to make use of the pool, but said that local residents would also have to do their bit.

Dadd added that while he was "happy to support" the expenditure on the pool, it was "difficult to justify" given the council's financial position.

He said that the running of the pool was a non-statutory service and that it would be a decision for future councils whether subsidising it could continue to be justified if such costs had not been "substantially reduced".

"The message is that we've got to do our bit by working with the user groups and the community to try and get that patronage increased - but so has the community," he said.

North Yorkshire councillors heard that the pool was one of the county's less well used

Dadd explained that in addition to a military-owned pool at Catterick Garrison, there was also another council-owned pool in Bedale, 12 miles away from Richmond.

He pointed out that residents of other towns in the county had to travel much further to reach their nearest swimming pool.

Dadd said that he had to "give a very, very strong warning about the future ability of this authority to make such positive decisions going forward".

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the meeting had earlier heard from Richmond Pool users, who urged the council to invest the money in the facility.

Simon Myers, executive member for culture, arts and housing, proposed that the committee vote in favour of the work, despite the centre being one of the county's less well used.

Myers told the meeting: "It seemed that right before we committed to spending money, we did a proper options appraisal to see what could be done, what needed to be spent, what the options were and take the views of the residents of Richmond.

"And we'd done that and it seems to me that when one considers the various options, the best one in terms of delivering our health, leisure and well-being strategy across North Yorkshire is to reopen this pool, to spend the money we need to make it properly operational."

The work on Richmond Swimming Pool was expected to take six months to complete, with the facility due to reopen in the first half of next year, the meeting heard.

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