Pool closure puts costs over health - commissioner

The Southern Swimming Pool is based in Castletown

Moves to close a pool in the south of the Isle of Man prioritised "short term cost cutting" over the health benefits of the community, a local authority member has said.

The Department of Education, Sport and Culture (Desc) confirmed last week that it would seek Tynwald support to close the Southern Swimming Pool in Castletown.

It is due to a shortfall in the increased subsidies needed to keep all of the regional pools open.

Northern Local Authority Swimming Pool Board chairman Juan McGuinness said the closure would inevitably "start impacting other facilities".

Desc made the recommendation in a Regional Sports Hubs report, which Mr McGuinness told the Local Democracy Reporting Service had "nothing to do with regional sports hubs" but was "about closing pools".

'Sense of community'

An annual government subvention of about £1.7m is paid to prop up the island's three sites, run by local authorities in the south, north, and west.

Desc aims to close the southern facility on 31 March.

The department was turning its back on the Island Plan for sports and the health benefits of swimming and "just looking for short-term cost cutting", Mr McGuinness continued.

He said pools did not exist to turn a profit but were for the "benefit and leisure and health of the population".

The northern commissioner's concerns were echoed by vice chairman of the local authority in Castletown, Beth Cannan.

She said it was a "well used swimming pool" that people relied on for "recreation, exercise and a sense of community".

Ms Cannan also said she was concerned about the affects of the potential closure on schoolchildren, who would lose out on more academic learning by being transferred by bus to other pools on the island for swimming lessons.

While she said she understood there were "financial challenges" and "tough decisions" had to be made, the social impact of closing the facility would be "huge".