Reopen the Fort pool
Tuesday 29th June 2010, 3:00PM BST.
From Rachel Scrimger.
ON 26 June, my husband took our three-and-a-half year old daughter for a swim at Le Quennevais. She was very excited and off they went at 9 am.
I received a phone call about half an hour later to tell me that his mission had failed on two counts: Les Quennevais was not open to the public due to a competition and the Aquasplash was only open for swimming lessons on a Saturday morning.
My husband asked if there were any hotels that they could go to. Yes, there are, but we are not members of any of their clubs.
Why should we be? There are two public pools in the Island. Both pools are taxpayer funded, the former is States owned and, for the amount of subsidy we pay, the latter may as well be.
I think it is a disgrace that something so simple could not be accomplished. I call for the States to look into re-opening the Fort pool as an additional venue for what is obviously a popular pastime for many Islanders, young and old.
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Could not agree with you more
Walking past the old pool at the fort today I wondered how much a contractor would charge to demolish it?, several hundred grand I bet.
Why not refurbish what is already there it has already proved itself in the past,sometimes these so called politicians beggar belief
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I fully understand your frustation Rachael,I know of another person who was refused entry with his children into Aquasplash as a wealthy resident had booked the pool for his daughters birthday party.
The closing of Fort Regent swimming pool was a massive blunder, the annual subsidy paid to Aquasplash would have been more than enough to maintain Fort Regent pool, and the water would have been warm!.
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Oh boo hoo, what a hopelessly middle class whinge. Presumably you’ve been able to take your daughter to either of those pools on many previous occasions? So why write a letter to the JEP just because on this one occasion the pools were not available?
And it’s summertime so maybe try one of the many beautiful beaches that surround you.
People of Jersey don’t realise how spoilt they are sometimes.
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Totally agree! Disgusted that wealthy Islanders can completely book out what is meant to be a public pool too! Could he have not hired out Langford pool (after all I imagine his darling child is a student at JCG)? Perhaps someone could start up a petition on facebook (not that the politicians will listen anyway)? Definitely believe that there should be at least 1 of the 2 public pools should be available for general use by the public during normal opening hours (i.e. not closed off for private parties, competitions, clubs or private lessons both at the same time).
Toby Jeung yes we are surrounded by beautiful beaches but a) on the day concerned tide was high early morning meaning mid-low water during the day time and us locals know that low tide swimming means having to walk down the beach getting cold to then have to trudge out for miles due to sand banks to get to a depth of just shin deep. b) Swimming pool is a far safer place for a child of that age to have fun learning to swim and spending what I imagine was meant to be quality time with her father – also less harmful sun exposure at the pool than on the beach!
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Agree with Toby. You know what to do next time – check before you go to see if the pool is open. Hardly think the solution is to reopen what will be another loss making venture.
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Toby (comment 3)Think you are missing the point that this lady is making- they are PUBLIC pools and therefore the public should be able to use them during opening hours.As for beaches-yes fine if the weather is decent although from experience the sea hardly ever warms up in Jersey and in any case it is not an ideal place to teach a 3 year old to swim.
I also do not understand why it is a middle class whinge-are the public pools not open to every class in Jersey?
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I can see where Toby is coming from, this letter reads very much as a “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” style, perhaps Rachel’s disappointment was worth boring her friends with but certainly not worthy of the supposedly limited column space in the JEP.
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erm… the reason i thought the fort pool could not be re-opened/ renovated and reopened was due to large amounts of asbestos in its structure?
I might be wrong but wasn’t it made public knowledge that it would cost millions to actually safely remove it all?
some one who knows, correct me if I’m wrong?
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cough cough #8
Even if the site is demolished the asbestos will still have to be safely removed, probably prior to demolition as it’s the disturbance of the material that raises the dangerous particles into the air people are breathing.
Usual practice when the material is in sound condition is to leave the asbestos in place and initiate a monitoring scheme.
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Some clueless comments on here. When FR pool was closed it was already 40 years old and past its useful life. To keep it running today would have required massive investment, so much so it made more sense to build a new one which they did.
As for re-opening it, a pool that big relies on water pressure to hold the walls up. Its structure begins to fail a short time after it has been emptied. This means you can’t simply ‘re-open’ FR pool. The entire building would have to be razed and rebuilt the ground up. There’s no need to do this because they’ve already built the new pool, it’s call the Aquasplash.
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