MADAM,

Following last week’s excellent letter referring to the plans for a totally inadequate swimming pool with inappropriate village style changing rooms, I refer to a recent report in the ‘i’ newspaper.

One point was that the NHS assessment body has said that older people should be provided with such activities as swimming and dancing to help combat loneliness.

The second is that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is calling on local authorities, charities and others, to identify lonely people and engage them in physical activity and other projects to improve their health and wellbeing.

What does our local authority do but knock down our perfectly good swimming pool? The plan to build a new one (in the far distant future it seems) with the village style changing rooms which, as last week’s letter points out, will prohibit the social interaction between people of all ages. Sadly, so many elderly people who were regular early morning swimmers for health reasons and who enjoyed the chats in the changing rooms, are people we rarely now see.

Also, since March last year, especially during the summer, where have local children been able to swim, with the pool being merely a heap of rubble? Three rivers bordering our town are obviously enticing and dangerous to children.

One can only hope that the planners will take notice of the valid criticism by many local swimmers re. the changing rooms and inadequately sized pool and speed things up in its building.

(Name and address supplied)