Council need their head examined
Olympic- size pool a waste of cash
If you think life under Nicola “Boris goes three tiers – I’ll go five tiers” Sturgeon is tough – then spare a thought this week for our devolved cousins in Wales.
There’s no tier 2, level 3 or even a circuit breaker for the Taffs, oh no.
They’ve been handed a four- week ‘ firebreak’. . . and it’s a sore one!
The Welsh government has really cracked down on what we already know as“essential shopping”.
Down there in the valleys – if you don’t eat it, drink it or wipe your bottom with it . . . then it’s ‘ nonessential’.
It got me thinking that this ban on arbitrary purchases shouldn’t just be limited to local people – it should apply to local authorities as well!
Like our good friends at South Ayrshire, for example.
Unless I’ve missed something – and I like to think I’m pretty much ear to the ground on local title tattle – there are no plans for Ayr to host the Summer Olympic Games.
Paris has bagged 2024 and Los Angeles will host 2028. So what the heck does Ayr need with the ultimate ‘ non- essential’ - an Olympic- sized swimming pool?
Answers on the back of a fag packet please. Well, why not?
That’s all SAC appear to have used in calculating that a leisure complex that’s still to get ON the drawing board – never mind off it! - will cost £ 40 million.
And a nice chunk of that will surely go to the landlords of the Arran Mall who – with the cat out of the bag - can now hold SAC’s feet to the fire over future negotiations to buy them out.
And, contrary to SAC’s social media, no- one at the Arran Mall has heard a tweet about being “relocated!”
Meanwhile, returning to back- ofafag- packet calculations, I bumped into a civil engineer friend last week and the subject of Olympic- sized swimming pools just happened to . . er . . . surface.
“Mmmm . . . . standard is 50 metres by 25 metres to a three- metre depth” he said casually.
And after punching the calculator on his phone - he announced this was 3750 cubic metres of water.
“One cubic metre weighs a tonne,” he added.
“Yes – it must be quite heavy . . . .” I nodded.
“No – I mean one cubic metre weighs EXACTLY a tonne – salt water a bit more.
This swimming pool will weigh 3750 tonnes . . . and that’s just the water.”
Suddenly . . . I wanted a to dive a bit deeper into this swimming pool business.
“So – they’ll have to move 3750 tonnes of earth to make way for the water?” I asked.
“Oh, a bit more than that – maybe 4000 tonnes.
Soil is denser than water – which is why it sinks of course . . .”. “So what is that . . . in lorry loads?”
“Well, a six wheeler might take 12 tonnes.
“An eight wheeler 16 tonnes. That’s about 300 lorry loads”.
I was trying to imagine 300 heavy truck arrivals - and departures - at our traffic clogged ‘ top of the town’.
“That’ll be a big disruption,” I suggested.
“Yes – and that’s before the pile driving starts . . .”
“Pile driving?”
“Well – something’s got to support all that water. You can have concrete piles – poured or driven. Steel tube piles.
“Venice was built on wooden piles you know . . .”
“Er . . . so how many piles then?”
“Oooh – that depends on a lot of things – but it’s mostly down to what you’re piling into.
“It could be a mash of rubble – hard to get a fix on.
“But around here, probably a subsoil of loose sand or wet clay – and neither are good news for heavy load bearing structures.
“Then you’ve got your water table – which can erode or weaken the subsoil strata. Sink holes, that kind of thing . . .
“It would be interesting to see the results of the test drilling.”
“Test drilling?”
I gave my Edinburgh- based friend a potted history of the Hourston’s site story – including the £ 250,000 already spent on buying the former store.
He was shocked.
“Bob, anyone planning an Olympic sized pool - and hasn’t even had the site tested – needs their head examined.
“And to spend £ 250,000 buying what’s above the ground - without testing what’s below the ground - is madness!”
Oh dear.
“Needing their head examined?” “Madness?”
Surely not South Ayrshire Council? I bet you council leader Peter Henderson has all the ground testing results in a file on his desk.
And to prove he doesn’t need his head examined – he’s going to show them to the Ayrshire Post by next week!
Is that right, Peter?
A chunk of that will go to the landlords of the Arran Mall who can now hold SAC’s feet to the fire.”