Swimming pool ‘rebuilt my life’

The impact of closing the swimming pool at Alsager Leisure Centre would be “horrendous” for people with disabilities, a resident has said.
Holding back tears, Shelagh Large made an impassioned plea to the town council, which has been asked by cash-strapped Cheshire East to provide £20,000, possibly annually, towards running the leisure centre, (ITALICS writes Melanie Walker).
Town and parish councils across Cheshire East have been asked to stump up towards the upkeep of their nearest leisure centres as part of the authority’s plan to avoid a section 114 notice (effective bankruptcy), by cutting services including library opening hours, garden waste removal and bringing in car parking charges.
A public consultation was launched in November with aims to save a minimum of £479,000 from the cost of running leisure services across the borough.
As previously reported, it had proposed to scrap funding for the running of leisure centres at Poynton, Middlewich, Holmes Chapel and Knutsford, but later made a U-turn after a public backlash.
It was revealed during a town planning committee meeting in December that Alsager’s Leisure Centre alone cost the authority £300,000 a year to run – not including the swimming pool.
Mrs Large spoke to town councillors during a meeting of the Planning, Environment and Community Committee at the Civic last Tuesday.
After using the pool “two or three times a week” for the last 45 years to help with spine and leg injuries, Ms Large said she did not know what the “psychological and physical implications would be” to her if the pool was to close.
She said: “I know the easy thing to do to save money would be to close the pool and keep the other facilities open. The pool is something like 80-90% of (the leisure centre’s) budget, but I cannot use the gym, there is no equipment that is compatible with my injuries.”
She explained that since being injured in the accident while crossing Lawton Road around 45 years ago at a newly-installed puffin crossing, she had been unable to drive a car.
She said: “I was a long-distance runner in the 60s, but I’m not allowed to run now even if I could, because of the huge amount of metal work in my leg.
“I could get tearful, but there’s no point. I’m just here to represent people who use the pool who have disabilities. The devastation for me would be a total collapse of my mental and physical health. I owe the rebuilding of my life entirely, to that pool.”
“I know budgets are not set to take account of one person, but the effect on me, and I suspect a great many other disabled people, would be horrendous. Please, do not close my pool.”
She explained that public transport links between her home on Dunnocksfold Road in Alsager and the next nearest pools in Kidsgrove, Sandbach or Crewe, were “pure fiction”.

Lessons

She was also concerned for the “phenomenal” number of children who used Alsager’ pool for swimming lessons and did not think surrounding pools would have the capacity to provide for them.
Coun Michael Unett, who chaired last Tuesday’s meeting, said he shared Ms Large’s frustrations with using public transport in the area, particularly when changing buses at Haslington to reach Crewe, when sometimes the bus did not show up.
He said: “We haven’t made a decision on whether we will contribute towards the pool because we don’t have a final figure yet, that is still being worked up.
“It is also not clear if we don’t help to fund it, what consequence will be. But it is something we are concerned with, along with other services, and we will have to come to a decision as part of our budget setting process.”
Coun Derek Longhurst, who is also chair of Cedar Medical Centre’s patient group, said: “I would like to support Ms Large in that a member of our patient group for 30 years has run a programme for people with disabilities at the swimming pool and it has been very successful.
“She featured in the ‘Chronicle’ not so long ago, because she was thanked on ‘The One Show’ for her work with disabilities.”
He was referring to Mary Holford, of Alsager Swans, which provides swimming therapy for adult and children at the leisure centre each week.
Coun Richard McCarthy told Ms Large: “Thank you for making the point so well, because it leaves us in no doubt of the importance of the pool and helps to solidify it within our consciousness.”
Coun Unett said further discussions on the town council’s contribution to leisure facilities would take place at future meetings.
(Photo: Everybody Leisure).