Swimming pool dream revived

IT has been Frodsham’s dream for more than 40 years – a community swimming pool.
Some 25 years ago it nearly came true when funding and a site were available to build one. But it didn’t happen because money could not be found to run it once it was built.
Now the dream has been revived following the Town Council’s recent town-wide consultation showed strong demand for a pool still exists.
The council is to ask Sport Cheshire to attend a future meeting to give a presentation on all aspects of providing a pool – including funding through grant aid. Councillors debated the issue at length at their monthly meeting after Cllr Darren Kelly put forward the idea of employing a specialist consulting to advise on the feasibility of a project to build and maintain a pool. He believed the council did not have the expertise to progress the idea and would “keep going round in circles” unless it sought expert advice.
Members explored a number of possibilities including setting up a working group to draw up proposals, seeking advice from the parish council at Penketh, Warrington, which already has a pool and involving neighbouring parishes such as Helsby, Kingsley, Manley, etc., whose residents would also benefit from a swimming pool at Frodsham.
Cllr Lynn Riley said a pool would be costly to provide and even more costly to maintain. Frodsham had not chosen to have a wind farm built on its doorstep. But now it was going to get one, money from the community benefit fund promised by the developers could perhaps be used for a swimming pool. If a neighbourhood plan was drawn up it could include a pool and the whole community could become involved. But if grant funding was to become available the proposal would have to be seen to be sustainable.
The meeting was told one possibility was for a pool adjacent to Helsby High School. But a possible obstacle to obtaining grant funding wherever the pool was located was the presence of pools at Northwich and Ellesmere Port – only eight miles away.
It was finally agreed to ask Sport Cheshire to give the council a presentation on the likely “funding landscape” if it was decided to go ahead with the project. Cllr Riley said: “We are very much at the starting gate on this.”