The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Questions as new centre faces delays
Questions have been asked over delays in building Blairgowrie Recreation Centre. Back in 2016 an SNP council administration budgeted for a state-of-theart centre in Blairgowrie scheduled for completion in 2020.
At a meeting of Perth and Kinross Council’s strategic policy and resources committee on September 1, SNP Strathtay councillor Grant Laing questioned if delays were not just down to Covid, but “partly due to political choice and direction”.
The council’s head of business and resources, Greg Boland, said the most recent delay was for the operational date of March 2023 to be moved to November 2023 because of Covid. He said he had met with the project team within the past week and confirmed the date to be November 2023.
Mr Boland said previous delays followed several meetings with users, with the addition of a sixth lane to the pool’s design and increasing the size of the sports hall. He told Mr Laing: “I appreciate the project has been on the radar for a period of time.
“Historically it was to do with feedback from the user reference group and expanding the scope of the project which you could say caused delays from when the funding was first announced.”
The building is now being built to Passivhaus standards.
Strathmore Conservative councillor Colin Stewart asked if officers were visiting other sites and learning from other councils about Passivhaus.
Property services manager Scott Nicoll said: “There are not many examples of Passivhaus swimming pools in the UK, Europe or for that matter the world. It is something quite new. We’re reaching out to people who know about Passivhaus designs and doing everything we can to take in whatever knowledge is out there.”
Blairgowrie and Glens Conservative councillor Bob Brawn said: “There have been delays , but this project is now moving forward.
“We can keep looking back, if we wish, but I would ask colleagues to start supporting this project rather than keep harping back to the past and why it’s been delayed.”
Blairgowrie and Glens SNP councillor Tom McEwan expressed concern costs would “increase even further” and said: “Blairgowrie Recreation Centre should have been finished by now.”