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Victorian
swimming baths are a reminder that all things must pass
• First Lord Coe declared that the “Olympics are for
young people” and now Tessa Jowell, who lives in Kentish
Town, is quoted as saying “I want to see local swimming
pools for local children.”
Personally, I want to see local swimming pools for adults
who want and need this great exercise. Schools should have pools
for children.
Maybe Ms Jowell, whose two children learned to swim at Kentish
Town baths, could work on that?
If the Government were concerned about our children’s fitness,
instead of raising council tax to fund two weeks in 2012, it
should have been used to fund a few thousand 50-metre pools
in local schools and some municipal pools for adult lap swimming
and lessons.
Why learn to swim as a child if you cannot practice as an adult?
Many adults have been chased from the overcrowded over-chlorinated,
overheated Kentish Town pools ever since the magnificent Swiss
Cottage pool shut down to make for hideous luxury flats.
Where was Ms Jowell then? Refurbishing our local pools has nothing
to do with the Olympic Challenge and everything to do with everyday
exercise in everyday life for those of us who aren’t tomorrow’s
sporting greats.
Joyce Glasser
Savernake Road
NW3
• DEIRDRE Krymer, David Horan and Lucy Anderson claim
Labour is responsible for getting the new Talacre sports centre
for Kentish Town, and keeping it under the direct control of
the council (The baths may be safe, but the row still rumbles
on, their letter, Feb 23).
What they fail to mention is that the council is selling
off a substantial part of this open space to a private developer
for a residential building and that Sports England funded the
Talacre sports centre on the understanding that the land would
accommodate sports. They must be astonished it is helping to
give a site to a private developer.
Richard Hall
Chamberlain Street, NW1
• I have read your coverage on Kentish Town baths and
frankly found it all baffling.
Councils have finite budgets – we moan if the council
tax goes too high and we complain if they close valued services.
But to sign a blank cheque off to the value of millions of pounds
to save an old Victorian building without fully researching
the alternatives is both irresponsible and foolhardy.
I am really, therefore, not entirely sure why the New Journal
has been so sensationalist in its coverage of Kentish Town baths.
Throughout the press coverage a handful of activists have been
named and it transpires that they are aspiring candidates for
the Lib Dems.
It seems to me that a highly vocal minority of Liberal Democrats
hi-jacked this campaign for their own political careers. A blank
cheque to put sticking plaster on a decaying Victorian building
will mean that a far more valued service could lose out in the
future. I personally would much prefer to see further pursuit
of a school for Holborn.
Ann John
Wren Street, WC1
• Where do physical and emotional needs meet? For me,
in a trip to Kentish Town Baths.
My morning swim lifts my spirits, releases my endorphins,
soothes stress and sets me up for another tough day of job search.
Of course the prime benefit is my physical health and I hope
to have the chance to emulate my co-swimmers who are using this
exercise to keep away from the doctors in their 70s and 80s.
In the past Kentish Town Baths has seen me through grief, divorce
and just plain boredom – and part of the thrill is undoubtedly
the opportunity to enter these beautiful, character buildings
whose history reminds me that these things too will pass.
Sarah Monk
Willes Road, NW5 |
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