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Resident shares fear pool could be lost in ongoing saga — as town councillors vow to support mediation process between Southwell Leisure Centre Trust and Newark and Sherwood District Council




A resident has raised concerns about ‘political point scoring’ in Southwell’s ongoing pool saga — fearing the town would be left with no pool at all.

The issue of the town’s swimming pool was raised at Southwell Town Council’s full council meeting on Wednesday, January 22.

The pool, which was operated by Newark and Sherwood District Council’s (NSDC) leisure provider Active4Today on lease from the Southwell Leisure Centre Trust, closed in October 2023 due to a 9,000-litres-a-day leak, and its future was subsequently subject to much debate.

Southwell Leisure Centre’s main pool.
Southwell Leisure Centre’s main pool.

After withdrawing a contested £5.5m offer for a new facility, NSDC instead agreed to provide the trust with the £247,000 that was required to repair the pool, and a further £250,000 for essential dryside repairs “conditional upon the district council exiting the lease thereby leaving the trust to manage its own affairs from now on”.

The trust has since been quoted just over £500,000 for the repairs to the facility, and hoped to meet with the council to progress this — but in it’s latest update from January 9, which was read out at the town council meeting, stated an “aggressive, biased and factually incorrect” statement by the council had ended the positive mood.

It added: “We have now activated mediation and will not be meeting directly with NSDC without a neutral intermediary.”

Member of the public, Brendan Haigh, who was was speaking on behalf of both himself and the Southwell Civic Society, said: “We are all very concerned about the continued delay, there seems to have been an inordinate delay in getting estimates.

“We’re also concerned about the political point scoring which seems to be going on between the district council and trustees.”

He suggested the town council had a responsibility to help save the pool — and that “if the pool is to be saved” he believed it would need a financial contribution from the town council. He added that NSDC’s offer was not sufficient and that this seemed to be a “complete stopping point”.

“It’s not giving a positive impression for the public,” he added.

“The residents are the ones that are going to suffer… particularly the young and old.

“Until there is movement on the part of NSDC we’re going to get nowhere… I’m very concerned this delay is going to leave us with no pool in the town.”

Penny Rainbow added that she was frequently stopped by people while out and about who wanted to know what was going on with the pool.

Roger Blaney described the situation as “tragic” when reflecting on a 44 year good relationship between NSDC and the trust, and maintained his view that the initial £5.5m offer should have been accepted.

He added: “The reality is the trust has broken down, and trustees are exercising their right to go to mediation.”

Steve Perry encouraged councillors not to rehash old arguments and to instead look at what the town council could do to help going forwards, while Jeremy Berridge, who was chairman of the trustees at the time of the £5.5m offer, added that he would be releasing a number of documents and email trails to the council as soon as he is able after the mediation process.

Mr Berridge added: “I think it will be quite surprising for people to see what happened.”

Jamie Bostock said: “I think what we must do is support the mediation. There’s been a loss of trust and we need to support both sides.

“Hopefully the truth will come out during this mediation… and lessen the bad blood between parties.”

Malcolm Brock acknowledged there was little the town council had the power to do, but suggested it was still prone to reputational damage as a result of the situation.”

It was agreed, based on a proposal by Steve Perry, to write to both the trust and NSDC in support of a swift mediation process, in the hopes of seeing it brought back into use.



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