REALITY hit home in the corridors of gloom this week, after Worcester City Council’s Labour leadership revealed what we all knew anyway about the swimming pool saga.

Proposals for a new eight-lane facility at Perdiswell, costing £13.5 million, are being shelved because we can’t afford it.

In the end a £5.2m funding gap proved too steep a mountain to scale, with fears over future budget cuts from central Government eventually draining away the ambition in favour of attempting a cheaper, more affordable pool.

But it hasn’t gone down well with Worcester Swimming Club, which has called it a “missed opportunity”, while the opposition Tory group insist the administration didn’t need to scale down its options at this relatively early stage.

Labour, meanwhile, insists it wants to be “straight with people” about not wanting to land the city with a hefty 40-year loan on a project with obvious risks.

The two sides will clearly never agree, so The Source has come up with an alternative solution - a ‘third way’, if you will.

Build a six-lane facility and give all users cheapo 3D-style glasses so they effectively become cockeyed upon entering.

Tell the world to come and see Worcester’s “18 lane mega-pool”, and everyone will be happy!

* THE clock is ticking across South Worcestershire, after an inspector told all three district councils the current growth blueprint doesn’t concrete over quite enough pleasant land.

Inspector Roger Clews says the current tally of 23,200 homes in the South Worcestershire Development Plan isn’t enough, like a strict schoolmaster ticking off his children.

While our politicians continue to turn the air blue over an “unelected” inspector ordering changes, our town halls are working away furiously to devise a new formula to satisfy his orders.

Let’s just hope a few months down the line The Source doesn’t have to resort to calling him Mr Clewless.

* THE Source was sent a really strange letter this week, which I’m still trying to make head and tail of.

It states: “If you have a spare jumper going this winter in Worcestershire, please give generously, regards, Mrs Baldwin, Mr Garnier.”

Can anyone make sense of this?

* BILL “I’m no politican” Longmore is nearing the anniversary of his first year as police and crime commissioner, which is next Friday.

To celebrate this fact, why not ask all coppers to say 'ello 'ello 'ello each time they arrest someone in Worcestershire on November 15th, thereby trebling the size of the police force.