I AM not a member of any pressure group but I am appalled at the disregard being paid to the views of the people of Droitwich Spa.
On January 9 the town council passed the new lido plan and put it forward to Wychavon District Council. The reason given for not being able to retain the current pool with a deep end for serious swimming was because the wet play area had been placed at that end and small children could fall in the current deep end.
The obvious solution to this is to change the plan and put the wet play area at the current shallow end. In this way the pool could be retained as a pool for teenagers and adults to swim in, instead of ignoring the large body of opinion in the town that wants the swimming facility restored.
Wychavon is ignoring important results from its own consultation exercise and townspeople should be aware of this by looking at the results of the consultation published on the Wychavon website www.wychavon.og.uk.
From 393 responses results show 70 per cent voted in favour of the new lido but Wychavon has omitted to show 23 people wanted a deeper pool. Of the 30 per cent who voted 'No' or were 'Unsure' the results show overwhelmingly that many in these groups wanted the deeper pool retained to swim in. There were some 67 comments to this effect. In addition question five of the consultation asked for extra features people wanted. There are some 85 comments that requested features that can never be provided with a shallow pool.
This means a very large percentage of the town's people will not be able to use the lido as they desire and, as a result, may not support it. It will also be a much more limited visitor attraction.
This appears to be happening because
Wychavon is driven by spending central government's money and ratepayer's money (all of which is our money after all) on a wet play area for children.
This will be at the cost of destroying a far more useful amenity that could have included the wet play area, and met the requirements of everyone in the community as well as being more attractive to the maximum number of visitors.
Wychavon will shortly consider the lido plan, while the time for public comments expires on January 26 but comments after this date will be reported to committee members.
Write to Tim Deakin, the council's property development manager at Wychavon District Council. It could be now or never.
John Armstrong
Westwood Close
Droitwich Spa
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