Southwell Leisure Centre Trust hope to repair and re-open town’s main pool within the year, after successful mediation with Newark and Sherwood District Council over its future
After being handed back responsibility for a closed town pool, and additional funds, a trust is hoping to see it back open within the year.
On Friday (March 28), it was announced mediation had been successful between Southwell Leisure Centre Trust and Newark and Sherwood District Council, amicably ending a lengthy saga over the future of Southwell’s main swimming pool.
The pool had been closed since October 2023, when a 9,000-litres-a-day leak was discovered, and the council’s subsequent proposal to build a new £5.5m pool facility failed to garner support.
The council then instead agreed to provide the trust with £247,000 to repair the pool, as had previously been suggested to be sufficient, and a further £250,000 for essential dryside repairs “conditional upon the district council exiting the lease thereby leaving the trust to manage its own affairs from now on”.
A quote obtained by the trust expected the repair to cost around £500,000 and their position was that the council had a “legal obligation to repair” the pool as part of their lease.
Now, as a result of the mediation, it has been agreed the council will be released from the lease and provide an increased sum to the trust — which trustees say will be sufficient to carry out repairs to a standard “necessary to ensure long-term functioning of the pool, improve health and safety, reduce adverse environmental impacts and ensure improvements in accessibility and amenity for people with disabilities”.
A legal sign off is expected on the mediation agreement in under a month.
Trust chairman Dr Philip Barron, said in a blog post: “The trustees have already made contact with their preferred construction company and hope in the next week or so to get a date in the diary for repair work to start.
“It is anticipated that repairs will take 3-4 months, so we hope that everything will be up and running again ahead of the 60th anniversary of the leisure centre later this year.”
The trust will now also have the funds to look at repairs to the building structure and replacement for some equipment, and has already begun to explore “responsive and forward-thinking” future management of the centre — which has for the past few years been run by the council’s leisure provider Active4Today.
The blog added: “The trustees are aware that the past 18 months have been frustrating, upsetting and costly for many people but we hope that, now the decision has been made, we will be able to count on your support and help to carry out our tasks and restore the leisure centre to a standard which everyone will be proud of.”
