WESTBURY Pool remains closed to swimmers, and although Wiltshire Council promises that the pool will be re-opened ‘as quickly as possible’, no date has been set.
A halt has been called on any remedial work because the exact cause of the fault has still not been established – even though the pool has been closed for a month.
Local swimmers have been left without any idea of when they can get back into the pool, and Westbury Amateur Swimming Club says the continued closure puts them under ‘tremendous pressure.’
The Victorian pool was closed for a second time at the beginning of March, in order to remedy unsatisfactory work carried out during an initial eight week closure between November and January. Tests are being carried out to determine what has caused blistering to the pool’s lining.
Local swimmers say that, while they were prepared to accept the first closure as necessary to improve the pool, they have been appalled by the level of work carried out and disappointed by the lack of information regarding the closure. Westbury Amateur Swimming Club says the situation has left the club, who treat the swimming pool as their home, in ‘a really bad place.’
Stephen Pyne, a coach at Westbury Amateur Swimming Club, said, “It’s a lot of money to spend to not get a pool working; it’s a disgrace. Simple things like the wrong colour and painting the lines in the wrong place, and then going away until we complained.”
Serious problems for club
Westbury Amateur Swimming Club now faces serious problems as it refunds members for missed sessions, pays extra for sessions at other venues, and worst of all has no idea when they can return to Westbury Pool.
Neil Tribick of Westbury Amateur Swimming Club said, “The club has been going for 120 years, but this is putting tremendous pressure on it. At the moment we’ve got no idea when we’re going to get back in the swimming pool. We had eight weeks for the first refurbishment, the second closure of the 4th to 28th was stretching it – only then to be told one day before that there’s no end in sight.”
It is the youngest swimmers that have been most affected, as it is hard to find early evening pool time at other venues.
“Every day we go elsewhere costs us money, we’re going to be increasing the compensation claim, but bearing in mind the argument over responsibility that’s not going to be easy. We are in a really bad place at the moment with the swimming club. When we get back to normality at some point, we’ll end up with far fewer younger swimmers, and that takes years to build up.”
Investigating the fault
A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said: “So far tests have not confirmed the exact cause of the blistering to the pool lining. We’re working with the contractor to investigate what caused the fault and further repair work will not take place until we have these results as we do not want a repeat of this situation.
“This is a very unusual defect and we apologise for the inconvenience it has caused. However, once the cause of the problem has been identified, repair work will be undertaken so the pool can re-open as quickly as possible.”
Wiltshire Council insists that the remedial work will be carried out under warranty by their contractors, with no cost to the taxpayer. However, residents report a wrangle between Wiltshire Council and their contractors over who will pay for the remedial work.
Neil Tribick said, “The contractors are doing nothing because there’s an argument [with Wiltshire Council] about responsibility. We’re not worried about responsibility, we’re interested in solutions.”
White Horse News reader Christine Pike said, “Apparently the work had not been started because there was a dispute over who would pay for the work. Why if this had not been sorted was the pool closed? We were using the pool OK even though the work done was not satisfactory, but it was useable, so why close it when there was a dispute over responsibility. Surely it should have remained open until this was sorted out.”
