Fleetwood pool campaigners given hope after council's funding bid launched

Wyre Council sent off its bid to the National Leisure Recovery Fund yesterday to help reopen Fylde Coast YMCA leisure centres and swimming pools in the borough – and it is hoped that can include those in Fleetwood and Poulton.

The fund has been launched by Sport England with the aim of helping public sector leisure centres to reopen after lockdown and recover enough to be sustainable.

Wyre’s efforts to provide leisure amenities during the pandemic, which has badly hit revenue at all the YMCA centres, have led to some controversy.

The council’s decision last year to agree funding to a trial reopening of Thornton and Garstang swimming pool and leisure centres when allowed to do so, but leave Fleetwood and Poulton pools and centres closed and under review, created uproar – particularly in Fleetwood, where the pool has stayed shut since last March.

But the latest developments have given campaigners who want to reopen all the centres and pools some hope..

Wyre’s leisure portfolio holder, Coun Lynne Bowen, says the council expects to hear in February whether the bid has been successful.

She said: “So far we have provided the YMCA with just under £1 million of additional funding since June 2020 to enable them to continue providing leisure facilities in our area.

“If we are successful in our bid, this money will go towards enabling us to support the YMCA in reopening centres following lockdown, including the reopening of further swimming provision in Wyre, something which has always been our goal.

“At the moment all leisure centres in England are closed due to lockdown restrictions.

““We appreciate the support of the public for the leisure centres and their concerns that the YMCA have been unable to reopen all their facilities.

“Please be reassured that we are working hard with the YMCA to lobby government, bid for funding and to look at ways to reopen as many leisure facilities as possible, when it is viable to do so.”

Fleetwood Labour councillor Lorraine Beavers, who called-in Wyre’s decision to keep Fleetwood closed and tried unsuccessfully to get that decision reconsidered by Wyre’s scrutiny committee, said of the bid: “It’s great news and I hope they get the funding they need.

“I am still concerned about how they would spend it,

“The original decision to keep Fleetwood’s pool closed and agree to reopen Garstang pool, which is used by far fewer people, was wrong and the scrutiny committee did not take up the opportunity to reconsider, despite new data.

“I hope they don’t continue along that path.”