Pleas to save Birtley pool
Birtley’s under-threat swimming pool has been lauded as a vital community lifeline by locals desperate to see it saved from closure.
The Birtley Swimming Centre is one of two Gateshead Council-run facilities that could be shut down under controversial budget cuts.
Unexpected news in January that the Durham Road pool was on the local authority’s chopping block, having not initially been identified as being at the highest risk, came as a major blow to the town – and especially to the Birtley Amateur Swimming Club.
As residents gathered to make their case to council officials at a drop-in session on Thursday night, club chair Edith Scott told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that she worries that local families and schools will not be able to afford the extra travel costs to send youngsters to other leisure centres in Chester-le-Street or Washington.
She said: “The club has been here for 49 years, next year is our 50th anniversary. The pool is important for the community, important for the children.
“We aren’t a competitive club, we are a schooling club and if the children can’t come here then where are they going to go?”
There has been a public outcry across Gateshead since the leisure centre closure plans were first announced last year.
At Gateshead Leisure Centre, the other facility currently proposed for closure by the council, plans are in the works for an asset transfer that could allow the site to be saved under the management of community organisations.
The swimming club in Birtley are involved in similar talks over their pool but are at a less advanced stage because their centre was not earmarked for closure until just over a month ago, when the council reversed its original proposition to shut Dunston Pool and potentially Birtley’s sports hall.
After Labour council chiefs agreed to a three-month reprieve, a final decision on the centres’ future is expected in June.
Edith added: “Everyone is here for the same reason – we all want to save the pool. If they close Birtley and tell people to go somewhere else, there is just not the availability for us elsewhere on a Wednesday night. Our parents in Birtley won’t want to travel miles to take their children swimming, they just won’t.”
Rebecca Scott, who swam at the pool from an early age and later became a lifeguard and swimming teacher, highlighted the importance of swimming as a potentially life-saving skill.
The 27-year-old said: “It is not just about swimming, it is about life-saving. A lot of the lifeguards who work for the council attended swimming lessons to start with.
“Think of the number of children in this country who have lost their life in water – there were quite a few last summer. If pools close kids won’t know what to do in that situation because they haven’t been swimming – it is going to make the situation 10 times worse.”
Ann and Barry Cleugh, both 75, have seen their children and grandchildren use the pool for years.
Ann said: “Birtley is on the outskirts and there is very little here for young people to do. When they are starting to gain some independence they need somewhere to go on their own. The pool is somewhere safe and healthy where they can go and get some exercise.
“So many families are coming to live here and it will be a massive shame to lose the pool.”
There has also been significant frustration that the pool has not returned to its pre-Covid opening times since the lifting of lockdown restrictions.
Local resident Clare Feeney added: “They have not gone back to the proper times. You can’t go after school, you can’t go before work, it is only open for a half-day on Saturdays and is shut on Sundays.”
The cash-strapped council has warned that it “will be unable to sustain further subsidy from our reserves indefinitely” to keep all of its leisure centres open.
Local authority bosses have argued that attempts since 2015 to make their public leisure services self-sustaining have failed and that they are expected to overspend their budget by around £2m this year, while also requiring £14.5m of maintenance over the next two decades.