BIRMINGHAM'S council leaders are throwing their arms up in alarm as they struggle to find ways to solve the crisis that surrounds this city's ageing swimming pools.
They face a bill of up to £90 million to modernise ramshackle Moseley Road, Harborne and Wyndley pools. More money will be needed to repair the city's other sites.
Amid this turmoil, leisure chief Coun Ray Hassall limply says: "It is a lot more money than we thought and at the moment we simply don't know where we will get it from."
What shambles. Councillors and their officials should have foreseen the situation and taken steps to avert it.
If this city's current leaders do not know how to cope, perhaps it is time for them to hand over to people with greater vision and determination.
This city's swimming baths, created by men and women with foresight and ambition, are well loved and well used.
Generations of youngsters have learned to swim there and they provide fun for families and exercise for the elderly.
Today we send a simple message to Coun Hassall and his team.
It is time for you to go if you do not know how to solve a crisis that should never have been allowed to occur.
Comments (1)
This is a tragic situation. Our swimming baths should never have been allowed to get into this state in the first place, and now we risk losing them altoger.
I can't speak for the other neighbourhoods, but if only the communities with interests in the Moseley Road Pools would work together instead of fighting each other, then they would have more chance of making progress in recovering their endangered facilities.
Posted by Nicola Barron | July 6, 2007 11:26 AM
Posted on July 6, 2007 11:26