Campaigners sinking feeling after bid to save baths ends
SERIOUS questions for Rossendale Council to answer about the never-ending saga of Haslingden Baths.
Campaigners ended their attempts to revive the swimming pool after years of trying earlier this month.
With almost indecent haste, Rossendale Council has stuck the pool up for sale now, with an asking prices of less than £200k.
Questions were immediately asked about the price - but it is what it is.
A site is only worth what people will pay for it.
What happens to the site is probably more important.
Housing seems a likely scenario, although I did hear one rumour at the weekend that there was a supermarket interested in the site.
Rossendale Council’s Labour leadership has utterly failed the people of Haslingden in its handling of the baths.
They never needed to close, Labour chose to close them and shift cash for the new swimming pool planned for the town to other projects.
Campaigners were given nothing like the support they should have been by the council, and not even the refusal of Labour Haslingden councillors to support the closure could prevent the Labour leadership from rushing through a closure.
At the very least, Alyson Barnes, leader of the council, and Andy McNae, the leisure councillor who drove through the closure, should guarantee every penny from the sale is spent in Haslingden - and spent on things people in Haslingden want.
A sad state of affairs and a situation which could have been avoided, had the council wished to avoid it.