Baths volunteers work incredibly hard but town has been let down
THE empty building that is Haslingden Baths is a sorry sight to behold – and the story behind how it got to where it is today is even sadder.
Closed since 2013, dozens of local volunteers have worked incredibly hard to try and come up with a plan to re-open the baths, part of Haslingden life for decades.
Support from Rossendale council, as I see it, has been patchy at best, a ‘jam tomorrow’ approach to support which involves volunteers having to jump through countless hoops by an authority which seems to be setting the bar ever higher, to mix sporting methaphors.
Last week, the Community Interest Company set up to try and re-open the baths says work towards re-opening the building will be paused for six months while they try to raise £200,000 the council says they need to see before chipping in £100,000 which they have long pledged and promoted.
£200,000! For a town which according to the census has a population of less than 18,000. No wonder people in Haslingden question whether what happened to their pool would ever have happened if that pool had been in other parts of the Valley.
Make no mistake, the people of Haslingden have been badly let down by Rossendale council when it comes to the pool. Back in 2011, the council was promising to build a new swimming pool for the town, and secured a loan to do just that.
The only reason Haslingden is without a pool now is because the current Labour administration at the council chose to spend that loan money on buying the Valley Centre in Rawtenstall.
They are in charge, and it’s their prerogative to change the council’s priorities.
But talk in recent times of ‘government spending cuts’ playing a part in the closure of the baths is a nonsense – it just wasn’t a priority for the council.
Rossendale council is, of course, being hammered by government grant cuts, but it still has found ways of supporting important projects.
Look at the recent loan to Ski Rossendale, despite a council report suggesting Ski Rossendale was a long way from being a viable business.
It has the potential to be, and it’s good to see the council helping.
Or the in-depth help provided to the Whitaker Museum to give it a long-term future.
Rossendale council can be proud of the help it is giving the now standalone museum.
Or the cash to support Rossendale Leisure Trust in setting up the climbing wall centre at Haslingden leisure centre.
There’s no doubt that investment will bring money into the Valley and council reports suggest it is already doing very well – but why all this support up front for these projects, and so little for the Haslingden pool?
At the time of the closure, the council argued that the repair bill was too high to keep it open.
Of course it was, that’s why a loan had been sought to build a new pool.
At the time, the council’s haste to close the pool seemed remarkable.
There was a volunteer group waiting to work with the council, but instead of keeping the pool open while they tried to come up with a solution, they closed it.
Facilities are far less likely to ever re-open once they have been closed than if a way can be found to keep them ticking over. There was a will in Haslingden to make that work, but seemingly not at Futures Park.
Asking people in Haslingden to find £200,000 to get financial support from Rossendale council for a pool closed only because it diverted £3m away for a new pool doesn’t sound like an offer of help to me, it sound more like rubbing salt into an already angry wound.