Outrage over rejection of free swimming for over-60s

10:30am Wednesday 1st October 2008

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THE dismissal of a scheme to allow free swimming for pensioners in Weymouth and Portland has sparked outrage.

Weymouth and Portland Borough Council's management committee rejected a proposal to introduce free swimming in local authority pools for over-60s earlier this month.

Members of the committee cited the need to protect the business of privately owned pools as well as the prospect of taxpayers eventually footing the bill as reasons for turning down the plan.

The council's Labour group has condemned the rejection of the scheme, which would have been supported financially by grants from the government, Dorset County Council and the Primary Care Trust. Group leader Paul Kimber said: "We feel it was an opportunity that needed more investigating and clearly we are concerned that over-60s will be missing out.

"Other local authorities are able to take this challenge up and we just seemed to resign ourselves to not doing anything about it.

"With the Olympics coming up are we really sending out the right messages? We could have the best trained juniors in the world but then our pensioners will be the worst provided for."

Coun Kimber added that 300 out of 354 councils nationwide had signed up to the scheme.

The Government urged councils nationwide to sign up the new scheme to make swimming free for over-60s.

It has offered grants to pay for the scheme and Dorset County Council and Dorset's Primary Care Trust have offered financial backing.

The council's spokesman for leisure, tourism and community facilities Brendan Webster - a Liberal Democrat councillor - was unable to attend the meeting but said he would have spoken up in favour of the free swimming scheme.

He said: "It's an opportunity to see if we can actually meet one of our 2012 objectives to get more people engaged in sporting and leisure activities across all parts of the community.

"It would also have allowed us to open the door to exploring further opportunities for younger people and two further pots of money that could be used to improve our facilities. It was a zero cost opportunity to try it out for a couple of years as the cost would have been covered by grants.

"At the end of the day if it had to be withdrawn it wouldn't be the end of the world."

West Dorset, Purbeck and North Dorset district councils have all backed the free swimming scheme. South Dorset MP Jim Knight said he was also disappointed with Weymouth and Portland's decision.

He said: "I was very pleased that West Dorset have chosen to go with the scheme, which comes with considerable amounts of government money "In the end I can only interpret this as a political decision by the Tories who run Weymouth and Portland Borough Council.

"Not only would those people who currently enjoy going swimming not have to pay but it would encourage more pensioners to be active and live a healthier life."

Management committee chairman and leader of the council's Conservative group Mike Goodman defended the committee's move.

He said: "There are lots of people who are going already who would like it for nothing but we found no evidence that any more people would go if it was free."

Coun Goodman said members had spoken to owners of the pool at Osprey Leisure Centre in Portland, who had expressed concerns over the possible impacts of the scheme and felt other pools might feel the same.

He added: "The package is only scheduled for two years, with no guarantee of long-term funding beyond that.

"We were not prepared to then be faced with a massive charge to keep it going or saying to people they cannot have it anymore.

"We don't like turning away money but the bottom line is we could see the risks and we had no evidence there would be any benefit in hard to reach groups."