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Tessa wades into pool row
Culture secretary calls for baths
decision
Education secretary Ruth Kelly, back left, teams up with
Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holmes, back centre, and
culture secretary Tessa Jowell, at Acland Burghley School |
CULTURE secretary Tessa Jowell has told the Town Hall to
face up to the “Olympic challenge” and resolve Camden’s
swimming baths crisis as soon as possible.
She revealed yesterday (Wednesday) that she had asked for a
special briefing on the Prince of Wales Baths in Kentish Town
amid fears that the pool could be shut and sold off.
Ms Jowell told the New Journal: “Lots of swimming pools
have been poorly maintained and they need to be refurbished.
It is part of rising to the Olympic challenge.”
After their election in 2002, Labour councillors pledged to
refurbish the pool, but work on the baths has yet to start.
Officials estimated last year that repair work would cost a
minimum of £17 million, but nobody at the Town Hall has
been willing to commit themselves to that amount of spending.
Swimming pool campaigners have told the council to stop stalling
and last week urged Ms Jowell to intervene by handing a giant
3,000-name protest petition to her staff.
Ms Jowell, who lives in Kentish Town, and whose two children
learned to swim at the Victorian baths, said she would not tell
the council what to do.
But she added: “I do speak as a local resident. I want
to see local swimming pools for local children.
“I did try to get some information on the baths. It is
a difficult decision for Camden but it has to be one that assures
people in this part of Camden that they can still be able to
swim locally.”
The Labour cabinet is due to make a decision on investment in
the pool later this month.
Behind the scenes, officials are working on the possibility
of building a new pool at the Talacre Sports Centre in Dalby
Road, Kentish Town.
If that plan is preferred, councillors could decide to abandon
plans to refurbish the Prince of Wales Baths, and sell off the
site. Either way, the amount of pool space is almost certain
to be cut.
Ms Jowell said the government had done its best to support local
authorities and now it was up to Camden Council to solve the
problem in time to train potential champions for the 2012 Olympic
Games.
She added: “If you look at the investment local authorities
are making for this type of thing it stands at about £5
billion.
“I am just standing back from telling Camden what to do,
but issues like this are part of the Olympic challenge.”
Ms Jowell was speaking to the New Journal during a visit to
Acland Burghley School in Burghley Road, Tufnell Park, yesterday
(Wednesday) morning.
She was at the school with Olympic gold medallist Dame Kelly
Holmes and education secretary Ruth Kelly to promote a new drive
encouraging pupils to take up sport.
Several students said that swimming was missing from the activities
available to them.
Millie Chandler, 15, said: “There is nowhere locally that
is good to swim in. The (Parliament Hill) Lido is not open in
the winter. The Lido should be heated and kept open.
“We need a swimming pool. People in our school are not
that big swimmers because there is nowhere good to go swimming.
“They are trying to get youth off the streets and obesity
is rising – but we need a pool.”
• Sport stars of the future lined up with Olympic gold
medallist Dame Kelly Holmes for a basketball challenge at Acland
Burghley School in Tufnell Park.
The middle-distance runner who thrilled the nation with her
double gold win at the 2004 Athens Olympics visited the school
to mark her appointment as National School Sports Champion.
Her new job will involve touring schools to motivate students
into taking up sports in the run-up to the 2012 London games.
She said: “I wanted to be an Olympic champion when I was
14. It’s taken 20 years but I got there. I want to motivate
and inspire others to pursue that dream.”
Dame Kelly shot at hoops on the basketball court with culture
secretary Tessa Jowell and education secretary Ruth Kelly. |
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