Swimmers urged to attend discussion over future of pool and fitness centre
The future of Shrewsbury's Quarry Swimming and Fitness Centre will be discussed at a meeting next week - and swimmers are being urged to attend.
Shropshire Council's Cabinet will discuss a number of options for the pool at their meeting on Wednesday.
One idea is to move the pool to a new site near the waste incinerator at Battlefield, which would heat the water.
Another possible idea is to relocate the pool to the Sundorne Sports Village.
But any decision to move the pool would be hugely controversial, so the Cabinet will also discuss a full refurbishment of the Quarry site.
Councillor Hannah Fraser is it was important that those who wanted to pool to stay in the Quarry made their voices heard.
She said: "We know members of the public feel really strongly about the swimming pool staying where it is and it would be great if they attended the meeting to show the strength of feeling in the town about the Quarry pool."
Nearly 1000 people took part in an online survey over the pool's future.
Campaigners are pushing for it to become a community asset. This would mean that should the council decide to sell the site, the Quarry Swimming and Fitness Forum would have to be given six months to come up with an alternative business plan.
Councillor Fraser said: "Our survey shows that if the pool moves out of town, a lot of people would not be able to get there because they don't have access to a car, or they are trying to fit their swim in before work or during their lunchtime.
"We estimate that the 858 people who took part in our survey make about 3500 trips to the pool each month - currently over half of these trips to the pool don't involve using a car."
"It does need some maintenance and repair," she added, "but the Quarry Pool has quite a fan club, and many people really like the location and the range of facilities on offer.
"There is real concern amongst the public about moving the pool to an out of town location.
"It seems likely that a new facility would have two pools, instead of the four pools at the Quarry, and the longest would be just 25metres instead of the 33m pool we have at the moment."
The meeting will take place on July 30 at Shire Hall and will start at 12:30pm.
