Community pool threatened

A massive public demonstration is being staged at Lochgilphead to show support for the closure-threatened Mid Argyll Swimming Pool.

The pool is currently facing a financial crisis in the form of a shortfall of £10,000 in the budget before Christmas, and management have appealed to Argyll and Bute Council to help from the council’s emergency fund. The pool also needs a further £30,000 in annual revenue to maintain its economic viability and ensure it stays open.

Thousands of people are expected to demonstrate on Lochgilphead Front Green on December 19 in what is expected to be the largest public demonstration in the town’s history.

The community-run swimming pool serves over 9,000 people, and has proved invaluable in teaching children to swim, as well as helping pensioners keep fit and is a vital resource for the disabled.

Yet the pool is again faced with closure before Christmas – initially for the sum of just £10,000 to meet the bank’s requirements. During the last financial crisis earlier this year, local people and businesses rallied around to raise £25,000 with a “swimathon” which saved the pool from definite closure.

Highlands and Islands MSP Jamie McGrigor has tabled a parliamentary motion calling for the future of the pool to be assured. It has received cross-party support, signed by Conservative MSPs Bill Aitken, Jackson Carlaw, Nanette Milne, Mary Scanlon, Ted Brocklebank and Margaret Mitchell, Labour MSPs Frank McAveety and Rhoda Grant, and SNP MSP Dave Thompson.

The board of the pool is hard at work to find alternative forms of funding and ways of generating revenue.

Mid Argyll Community Enterprise Ltd chairman Stephen Whiston said: “We are working in partnership with the council to find a way of safeguarding the future of the pool which everyone agrees is a vital resource not only to the local community but in attracting tourists to the area.

“It would be a tragedy to see it closed for what is, in effect, a small amount of money.”

The pool brings in revenue from paying swimmers of almost £100,000 a year, but needs an increase in council funding to pay staff wages and for vital repairs which have not been carried out for some time now.