Synchronised champs sunk after council closes pool
AN award-winning synchronised swimming club could be left without a pool after the council closed theirs and is replacing it with one that’s too shallow.
The previous pool was up to 12ft 6in (3.8m) deep but the new one will only be 6ft 6in (2m).
Council chiefs, who are spending £24million on the new pool, refuse to lower the depth as they say it would cost another £2million – but Halifax Synchro says it has not seen evidence of this.
Club founder and coach Charlotte Hughes, 38, said: “For a synchro club to offer facilities to a national standard, we can’t do that with a pool less than 3m deep. It’s not deep enough from a health and safety point of view.”
She formed the club when she was 18 and it now has 100 members. Among them is GB squad ace Isobel Davies.
In 2019, the club’s 13-15 age group won the national combo cup at the Olympic pool in London.
But pools were then shut due to Covid, and Calderdale Council said it wouldn’t be reopening the 50-year-old Halifax
Pool because of structural damage. It claims its new venue will accommodate 98 per cent of current users. Charlotte said: “The plans submitted to the planning department aren’t very clear and don’t show the depth, but it would appear it would be substantially less than 3m.
“We currently hire a private pool and the council have offered us use of another pool in Todmorden but that is an hour to and from Halifax. “The council say we are two per cent of their user base. We believe it’s more like 10 per cent when looking at the swimming hours. We have already lost 22,678 hours a year.”
The Daily Express has highlighted the state of local sporting facilities through the Save Our Olympic Dreams campaign.
We have joined forces with the charity Made By Sport to increase access to sporting facilities for young people.
Calderdale Cllr Jane Scullion said: “The council is under extreme pressure to make budget savings across all services.
“Deepening the swimming pool would add costs which could not be repaid from the income that the centre will generate.” ●●Local clubs can apply for funding via madebysport.com/ clubsincrisis