Month: May 2010

Online Sparkhill Consultation

Further to last week’s consultation events, there is now an online survey on facilities at Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre. You can take the online survey here.

It’s very disappointing that the public seem to have no say in who should manage the facility, especially as this will have an impact on one of the most important assets that local leisure services have: the staff.  I spoke with a local council leisure employee only yesterday who doesn’t know whether or not they’ll be in a job in two months time.  If the Council are serious about providing high quality health and fitness facilities they need to put such concerns at the heart of the plans.  This narrow-minded approach certainly doesn’t bode well for developing other leisure sites around the city…

Abandoned

The Guardian put out a request for readers’ photos on the theme ‘derelict’ last week. The result was a collection of some of the most heartbreaking pictures of buildings which are a shadow of their former glory.

Amongst the pictures was a photo from Emma Jones (editorialgirl) of the Gala Pool at Moseley Road Baths which you can view on the Guardian’s site.  The article incorrectly describes the swimming pool as abandoned (there is another fully functioning pool on site), but it’s not difficult to see why they drew that conclusion.  I’m not sure how I feel about it: the pool is absolutely gorgeous, even in its present state, and I think that the more publicity the building has the better, but it’s absolutely shameful that such a building remains in the ownership of Birmingham City Council in such a state.  I feel embarrassed that my local pool should so frequently be on ‘most endangered’ and ‘most neglected’ lists, but it seems that our local politicians share no such concern.  Their silence over the past few months has been deafening.

The current state of play is that we have been presented with some three year old figures for the full refurbishment of the Gala Pool (estimated cost, £9m), but it has been made clear that this possible work is tied in with the future of Sparkhill Baths, which will be rebuilt on the current site.  Whilst that is decided Moseley Road Baths is in a continuing state of decline, with urgent work required to make the building watertight.  We took the volunteers from our Pool of Memories Project around the building a few weeks ago (more on that later!), and we were all shocked at just how bad the first floor flat is looking.

So, if you share our despair, think about dropping some of the local councillors a line and asking them what they plan to do in the immediate future to preserve Moseley Road Baths.

Martin.Mullaney@birmingham.gov.uk – Cabinet Member for Leisure, Sport and Culture

Sparkbrook Councillors
Salma.Yaqoob@birmingham.gov.uk
Mohammed.Ishtiaq@birmingham.gov.uk
Shokat.Ali@birmingham.gov.uk

Better still, consider attending one of their Advice Surgeries.  Let us know how you get on!

Sparkhill Consultation

As part of the Council’s ongoing plans for replacing Sparkhill Pool and Fitness Centre they have called a series of consultations for this week.  So far it appears that consultations have not had any mention of how the building should be financed and managed, something which campaigners over in Sparkhill believe is absolutely fundamental to the kind of facility they end up with, and how it will be maintained.  Councillor Mullaney is firmly in favour of a Private Public Partnership scheme, where finance and management will come from ‘Pulse Fitness’.  But is this really what’s best for the facility and for the public?  Either way, head along to one of the consultations and see if you can get some answers… and let us know how it goes!