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Town Hall director of sport Nigel Robinson, left, and a Euro Pools representative attempt to resolve the mechanical problems at Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre |
Swimming pool problems go even deeper
10 weeks after closure, Town Hall invites New Journal to inspect troubles at the £85m centre
A SWIMMING pool which keeps breaking down is still closed 10 weeks after the latest in a string of problems forced it to close once again.
The learner pool at the £85million Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre was finally closed indefinitely in October after the high-tech rope used to lower and raise its moveable floor snapped.
Despite Town Hall assurances for the hundreds of youngsters and elderly swimmers who use it every week that the pool would finally be open this week, it emerged yesterday (Wednesday) that it remains closed and further delays are expected.
It has been closed around 200 days since it opened three years ago, which effectively works out as once a week.
In its latest statement, the council said the pool would “hopefully” reopen by the end of the week but could not give a day and warned further safety tests were needed.
The New Journal was this week shown the state of the pool.
The council’s director of sport, Nigel Robinson, said following a fifth breakdown, he called for independent assessors to intervene and check that the facility’s contractor, Euro Pools, was repairing it properly.
He warned that if there was a future failure and an accident, the Town Hall could be liable for compensation claims. “The council is trying to protect its position,” he added.
The ropes – which cost £5,000 each – have already snapped four times before and until now the pool has always been repaired by Euro Pools. The Glasgow-based firm, who describe themselves on their website as “one of Europe’s leading leisure specialists,” recently won a contract to build the 2012 Olympic swimming pools. Although the latest breakdown was fixed within 10 days, council officials said during our visit to the pool that it had remained closed while their own assessors carry out investigations.
Mr Robinson said: “Euro Pools said they had repaired it and our legal advice was to get it independently tested. That was seven weeks ago and now it’s been this to-ing and fro-ing over how to make the testing method rigorous.”
Despite anger from regulars about their children’s missed swimming lessons, Camden had to give Barratts Development Plc, the site’s overall contractor, and Euro Pools “every opportunity” to fix it, he added.
“We’re in a sensitive situation with our contractors,” said Mr Robinson. “I don’t want to accuse Barratts or Euro Pools or say they’ve been negligent. I want to keep them at the table and repair the pool.”
He said the reputations of Barratts and Euro Pools were on the line and they would want to deliver.
Last night Euro Pools defended its record as an industry leader and said it was only brought in to build the pool after designs had already been drawn up by another company, Thermalec, which has since gone bust.
Euro Pools director David Wyllie said: “This was a job originally designed by a different company. That company then went into receivership. We came in and took over the job but we were stuck with a design that had already been installed. We would have put forward a different design had we been involved from day one.”
Critics of the multi-million pound development – which saw the adult swimming pool shrink to half its original size – say Camden should never have handed over so much land to Barratts in return for a “cheap sports centre”.
David Reed, of Eton Avenue, a journalist who campaigned against the development, said the origins of the site’s current calamities could be traced back to a poor planning brief as set by Camden.
He added: “How much of the current problems is Barratts’ fault? Not much. Camden got it wrong in terms of what they wanted.
“They saw the centre was getting expensive and they wanted something cheap and easy.
“Jinxed is one way of looking at the pool, but obviously it’s a very bad design that doesn’t work well.
“Whether it should be scrapped and built again is another question. I don’t know much about swimming pool design, and evidently Camden doesn’t either.”
A council spokesman said yesterday: “We carried out a test to ensure the pool was safe to reopen to the public which is our main priority.
“The data was carefully analysed to determine if safety levels were being met. This required further testing and if the results show the pool is safe for public use we will reopen it hopefully later in the week.
“We apologise to residents for any inconvenience.” |
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Your comments:
AFTER all that money and time surely it should be fixed, or maybe not. Didn't experts build the Titanic and an amateur build the ark?
Robert Steelman |
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