Ipswich Council "committed" to Parks bid, but not pool.

The Executive of Ipswich Borough Council met on 18th March 2008 to discuss submitting a Stage 1 Application to the Parks for People Programme for Holywells Park in Ipswich. This bid would have been submitted at roughly the same time as the one prepared by the Broomhill Pool Trust, but was not in direct competition with it as the Parks programme comes from a separate funding pot.

The main difference between the bids was the large "commitment" the Council were prepared to make to the Parks submission: the Recommendations in Section 11 of the Minutes read as follows:-

11.1 That Executive approve £2,228,990 for Holywells Park and this be added to the 2008/09 Capital Programme.

Reason: this will show the Council's commitment to the HLF to proceed with this scheme.

11.2 That Executive approve £30,000 per annum for the revenue effects of the scheme and this be added to the GF Revenue Budget with effect from 2009/10

Reason: this will show the Council's commitment to the HLF to proceed with this scheme.

So Ipswich Borough Council are fully aware of what "commitment" means and how to implement it.

By the same token, they would also have known that their level of commitment towards the Trust's bid was poor: Richard Powell from the HLF said that the Council had promised £1 million but that it was not secured. The Council has not ruled out the possibility of demolition of the lido and therefore the £1 million could have been used for either restoration or demolition.

The money committed to Holywells would have been more than enough to save Broomhill Pool in conjunction with the Heritage Lottery Funding the Trust had applied for.

BBC Look East film at lido after news of HLF rejection

The BBC Look East team were down at the Broomhill Lido by midday on 12th September 2008 to interview Ipswich Borough Council and the Broomhill Pool Trust, in the aftermath of discovering that the bid for Heritage Lottery Funding had been rejected.

They also interviewed me as I run a campaign forum called Pooling Resources which tries to research pool campaigns/closures and successes across the country.

Mike Read, who is a champion Channel swimmer and President of the Broomhill Pool Trust, spoke for the Trust and said it was a tragedy because by rights Broomhill Pool should be part of the Olympic legacy and available for 2012 training.

Mrs Judy Terry spoke for the Council saying they had pledged £1 million for the project, but Richard Powell from the Heritage Lottery Fund said that when they came to look at that promise it was unsecured and that therefore the bid was considered to be too high risk.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7612758.stm

(The photo on this post was taken by WPP architecsts, the firm who conducted the Feasibility Study on the Pool. This showed that the lido could be restored as a heated, outdoor, 50 metre pool for £3.9 million. The study was conducted in 2006 and a formal presentation was made to Ipswich Borough Council in 2007.)

HLF explain why the Broomhill bid was rejected.

BBC1 Look East gave good coverage to the news that the Heritage Lottery Fund had rejected the bid submitted by the Broomhill Pool Trust, back in March.

I don't know how permanent this link will be, but in this interview Richard Powell (from the HLF) explains why the bid was not successful.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7613539.stm

The recent history of Broomhill Pool is one of betrayal by the very Council that so proudly built it back in 1938.

The Twentieth Century Society succeeded in getting the lido 'spot listed' in August 2001 as a Grade II Listed building. Undeterred, Ipswich Borough Council proceeded to inform central government that the pool was closed, so that when the DCMS ( Dept of Culture, Media and Sport ) published a list of closed Listed Swimming Pools and Pool Buildings in January 2002, the Broomhill Lido was included.

This would have been news to the swimmers who were trustfully using the pool in the summer of 2002; they had no idea that they were swimming up and down during the pool's very last season. In the autumn of 2002 the gates shut quietly: no consultation, no warning, no publicity. Rumours started to circulate though and in February 2003 the local Evening Star printed its "Broomhill is Doomhill" story and the campaign to save it began in earnest.

HLF bid fails September 2008

Breaking news on 11th September that the HLF had rejected the bid from the Broomhill Pool Trust, which had been submitted back in March.

The news came with a twist, because comments made by Mr Powell (representing the HLF on a BBC Look East interview) referred to the council's lack of commitment.

Mr Powell said that the HLF were worried about future sustainability without a greater commitment from Ipswich Borough Council. This is very much a Catch 22 situation because we have known about the Council's lack of commitment for the last seven years!! That is not news to the campaigners.

What's it all about Alfie?

Six years ago, in the summer of 2002, I was swimming in the Ipswich Lido known as Broomhill Pool. This is a Grade II Listed, Olympic-sized pool with diving boards and the only one of its kind in the county of Suffolk. However, in the autumn of 2002, when the gates were shut at the end of the season , rumours started to circulate that it would never open again, even though there was no official confirmation.

A petition was started by Mike Read, (a champion Channel Swimmer who had used the Broomhill Lido for years for his Channel training) and thousands of Ipswich residents signed up. A group initially calling itself the Friends of Broomhill Pool was formed, to formally lobby Ipswich Borough Council for more information about the pool's future: I tabled my first Question in November 2002 for a meeting of the full Council.

Thus begun the campaign and little did we know, at the time, what a long haul it was going to be. The current situation is that a bid for Heritage Lottery Funding was submitted at the end of March with the outcome due in the autumn.

A total of £3.9 million is needed to see this lido restored and re-opened and Ipswich Borough Council have pledged £1million if the rest of the money can be found from other sources! This offer remains very much a two-edged sword, in my opinion, because the option of demolition has still not been ruled out by the Council and if the HLF bid does fail, then that £1million fund will be used for the pool's destruction rather than its restoration. Only time will tell.