Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Seriousness: Save Scartho Baths

Long time no post and this one's not even music related.

My local council are... a bit stupid? Ridiculous? They seem to operate on the basis that "if-we-say-we're-going-to-do-something-no-one-can-possibly-object". The latest example of which was their recent announcement that they plan to demolish my local swimming pool, Scartho Baths. The plan is to replace the pool with a new one at the Leisure Centre. Said new pool will be 25m long and have no diving boards. The current pool is somewhere short of Olympic standard (i.e. 50m) and has diving boards. It's on a lot of major bus routes, unlike the Leisure Centre, which is on just one bus route.

Problem, much?

Many years ago, I learnt to swim at that pool. I imagine most people in my area learnt to swim there. In the wake of the Olympics and Paralympics, demolishing a decent-sized pool and replacing it with one that's half the Olympic length seems ridiculous. What's happening with the Olympic legacy?

I should point out that the council claim that the pool is structurally unstable. Something about draining it would make the pool collapse. Now, this seems unlikely to me as I'm sure that up until fairly recently the pool was drained once a year for cleaning anyway. Obviously I know nothing about engineering. That said, the engineering report or whatever it is hasn't been made available. I'm half tempted to demand it be released so we can see how much truth is in the council's claims.

Anyways, enough ranting. I've probably missed important things out. If you're local to Grimsby, signing THIS PETITION would be vaguely helpful. And if you happen to be from the council and reading this, please think back to when you tried to shut down our nursery schools. That didn't entirely go in your favour, did it now? And I see that there's already been progress, which is also viewable at the same address as the petition.

"We won't stay silent - we'll make as much noise as we can." Enter Shikari - Tribalism