Tunstall Pool run as a Trust

Today the council have stated that they will work with organisations to establish a trust for the Tunstall Swimming Pool facility. This is great news for all of us who have been working hard to save this facility from closure.  From the start of this process we have always known that getting the council to save the pool as a council run facility was never going to be achievable given the depth of the cuts the council has to deal with.

I have recently established contact with the Amateur Swimming Association, they are interested in working with the Residents Associations and the Council to make the pool a charitable trust.  Therefore taking the responsibility for running the facility away from the council.

The main advantage of the facility becoming a trust is that it will be self sustaining, any further council cuts will not mean we have to go through yet another "Save the Pool" programme.

Once the pool has been converted to a trust status it's future will be in our and the ASA's hands.  Therefore it must become at a minimum a not for profit business but hopefully a business which can produce a profit.  The good news for those using the facility is that any profit can be reinvested into the pool and ancillary facilities.

We now need to start a process of coming up with ideas to make the pool self sustaining in order to allow the trust to be successful. As many of you already know there are a few ideas to make this work, such as;

• Increasing the admission / session prices.
• Decreasing the Pool temperature by 1° Celsius.
• Promoting the work the pool does to increase the occupancy level.
• Work with other businesses within the area.
• Better utilisation of the rooms within the building.

It appears that at this stage Shelton Pool with definitely be closed as the maintenance required to bring the facility up to standard mean it is not cost effective to convert the facility to a trust status.  It has therefore been suggested that Tunstall Pool should take on the role which the City is to lose when Shelton Pool closes.

I will update this forum topic over the next few weeks with the current status of the trust.