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Letters to the Editor
 
Architects obviously don't go swimming

• Our family went for a swim at the new Swiss Cottage pool at the weekend. We were all really impressed by the shiny building with its pleasant façade.
We eventually found the right changing rooms and the family changing area. Area is right. The architects obviously don’t go swimming here with their families otherwise they would have created a proper changing room. And even poor old Kentish Town has more changing cubicles than here. The 20p charge to cram our clothes into a locker is outrageous. I am not going to pay 20p twice to use a locker, so it’s back to cluttering up the pool area with our towels and shampoo I am afraid.
It was a nice swim, though a bit colder than we expected. This was not helped by there being no heat control on the pre-swim showers.
The male changing room is big. There are tons of lockers but only a handful of showers. These are individually enclosed with cheap tacky finishes and have been vandalised already.
After showering (whilst keeping one eye firmly on my belongings which are parked on the floor outside the cubicle) I decide to have a look round the rest of the building. Spacious gym over two floors, nice sports hall, good squash courts…. but where are the sauna and steam rooms? They are in a ‘broom cupboard’ on the top floor. The sauna has room for one man and his dog and there is no plunge pool. And they couldn’t have put it further away from the swimming pool if they’d tried.
Back in the dark ages when the redevelopment at Swiss Cottage began, residents of Kentish Town were asked by Camden Council to fill in questionnaires detailing their ideas for the new Kentish Town pool when it got to be our turn. I filled in a form detailing a plan for all sporting and swimming facilities to be linked to a central changing area. The idea being that people choose how many activities they want and pay accordingly. They do not have to move from one changing room to another in order to access everything in the facility.
It is still possible to achieve something close to that in Kentish Town providing the council has the foresight to choose architects who go swimming with their families.
Des Bradley
Lawford Road
NW5


Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.
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