As you may have noticed, the Cottenham Pool was not open during the long, hot summer period, which was, to say the least, unfortunate, but unavoidable. We need to spend a lot of money on a health and safety refurbishment to replace a rotten framework, damaged concrete, toilets and changers, and heating system. All in, it’s likely to cost £170,000. The committee is trying to find out whether the pool could be run legally and safely with only a partial refurbishment, such as replacement of the pool shell alone (which would probably cost about £60k). But, until we have that money the Pool remains closed and the pressure is on to come to a final decision as to whether it should be closed for good.

The Village Plan emphasised that a swimming pool was a priority, but the Committee is still holding its breath for anything to come of that assertion. We really are past the use it or lose it point, but the Pool, which has been open to the village since the mid-1960s and has been used by thousands of swimmers, could still be saved.

What we need now, are some new committee members with some great ideas for raising the necessary funds to refurb the pool and get us up and running for 2011. Any volunteers among Primary School parents? Think about it, once your kids leave the Primary, they’ll have nowhere open-air to swim.

As well as good ideas and short-term fundraising, there must be a firm commitment of time from future rota organisers, supervisors for the sessions where children swim, swimmers for all sessions and ideally volunteer lifeguards too, because the number of people doing these things has been insufficient in the past few years and is the main reason why we’ve not had full value from the pool maintenance. To get full value from the maintenance we’d need the pool to be open for longer each day, but we’ve not been able to afford that or get enough volunteers to do it for free.

Several members of the current committee have been running the Pool on a voluntary basis for at least a decade and some for two decades, it’s time for new people to step up to the mark and dive in, figuratively speaking. The Village works incredibly hard to pull off FEFF and other events and to raise money for the Community Centre, isn’t there anyone with marketing, campaigning and fund-raising experience who enjoys swimming al fresco, who can help us swim and not sink?

Posted: 07|14|10 at 3:58 pm. Filed under: swimming.

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