Shropshire Star

Hope of Olympic size public pool in Shrewsbury

There was fresh hope today that Shrewsbury could host an Olympic-sized swimming pool after it emerged the only 50-metre pool in the region faces closure.

Published

An action group, campaigning to keep the Quarry Fitness and Swimming Centre where it is, sees the threat to Coventry's pool as an opportunity for Shrewsbury to become a regional destination for competitions.

The Quarry Swimming and Fitness Forum wants Shropshire Council to look at the possibility of installing a 50-metre pool.

The council is currently in talks with Sport England over accessing funding to either revamp or rebuild the Quarry pool.

Bernard Wills, chairman of the forum, said: "It would be a great disappointment if the Coventry pool did close because it's the only 50-metre pool in the whole of the West Midlands.

"But one of our proposals to Shropshire Council was for a 50-metre pool which would be ideal because it would give more space not just for competitions but for the public as well.

"So we would welcome the opportunity to have a 50-metre pool in Shrewsbury.

"Ideally we want to retain the Quarry site and have the building refurbished."

The Quarry pool currently costs £300,000 a year to run and will rack up repair bills of £666,609 by December 2015.

Tomorrow cabinet members will be asked to give officers the go-ahead to start drawing up business cases for a variety of options.

These include a major refurbishment, a rebuild on the same site or a move to another site.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.