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Thanks for listening over baths closure
• IT'S been almost 15 months since residents started campaigning to save the Kentish Town Baths and now it is good to see the council moving forward with its plans to repair the facilities in full.
It is of course sad that the baths will have to face an extended closure – but anyone who’s seen the state of the baths behind the scenes will be in no doubt about the chronic disrepair they have been allowed to fall into over many years.
Let’s not forget that it’s been 46 years since the baths were last refurbished – they have been waiting long enough.
But ultimately this is a very exciting project. The council is reaffirming its commitment to low-cost swimming and fitness in the building that has served this community for a hundred years and more.
The finished product should be a tribute to the Victorians’ original purpose of quality municipal leisure.
I would urge people to get involved in the consultation process – it is now an open and community-led process rather than an officer-led process.
There will be a public meeting at 6.30pm on Wednesday February 7 at St Patrick’s Primary School in Raglan Street.
For a real adventure, I would also recommend that swimmers, gym users and anyone with an interest in local history take advantage of the open days on January 22, February 5 and February 24-25 when tours will be taken behind the scenes.
Cllr Philip Thompson
Fortess Road, NW5
• AS someone who campaigned passionately to keep Kentish Town Baths open, I am pleased to see that our newly elected council is putting its money where its mouth is and is soon going to carry out the much needed repairs to hopefully restore this much-loved facility for at least the next 50 years. I speak from experience when I say that any closure of a public facility causes upset, heartache and a great deal of inconvenience but I would rather that the baths are closed now before things get much worse and the relevant restoration can take place.
Residents are being welcomed to have much say in how they would like to see the renovated baths.
The consultation process is in progress and I know views will be taken into consideration.
I also know that it will be worth waiting for and will be watching the progress with great anticipation.
BRENDA HUMPREYS
Chair London Schools’ Swimming Association
• THE shock of closure of the Kentish Town Sports Centre was not the only victim of the new policy of “cut and consult after.” Home Start in Camden was also delivered this blow last week.
Home Start volunteers support young families from a huge variety of backgrounds. The are referred for many reasons.
Volunteers are trained and then carefully matched to a wide diversity of families. Visits are usually four hours each week for up to a year.
At any one time volunteers are seeing around 130 families.
The volunteer’s contact time alone is the equivalent of 14 full-time workers. All members of a family are in some way involved in the visits. This amounts to many hundreds of adults and children who would lose this service. Over 150 experienced volunteers would be abandoned.
And the saving – what it costs to employ one person at the Town Hall (including on-costs).
I do hope that the CACA policy will be reviewed and the councillors will realise the value of Home Start.
JANE FAWCETT
Home Start Volunteer
Patshull Road, NW5
• FOR those of us who have been using the Kentish Town Sports Centre to keep fit in various ways over the years, it is good news indeed that the Liberal Democrats are responding so quickly to the calls of local residents for the baths and other facilities to be saved and completely refurbished.
Congratulations to Councillor Flick Rea for pushing ahead with this.
The centre’s popularity has been demonstrated by the number of people who continued to use the facilities over the years, despite the increasingly dreary state of the building, and by the outcry at the suggestion that it might be demolished.
No doubt many users will take the opportunity they are being given to comment on the proposals for the building and how it should be used when it reopens.
Meantime we shall hope that Greenwich will find a way to accommodate popular classes, with their instructors, in the other facilities they run for the council in Camden.
PATRICIA HUTTON
Murray Mews, NW1
• CAMDEN'S announcement that Prince of Wales Baths will be closed till 2010 for renovation begs a lot of questions.
First, why will it take so long?
Second, why do both pools need to be closed the whole time? Why not keep one open while working on the other?
Complete closure means Kentish Town kids won’t be able to swim there for at least three years. That’s a big slice of a child’s life.
Third and most important, can we have a cast-iron assurance that both pools (and the learner pool) actually will reopen, and that the officers who really wanted all the time to get rid of them won’t come out of the woodwork in 2010, hoping that by then Prince of Wales Baths willl have been forgotten, and say: “Oh dear, we’ve encountered unexpected problems, the pools will have to be sold off after all?”
Lastly, a big thank you to the staff at Prince of Wales who have done a very good job of keeping it, even in its present run-down state, a great place to swim.
RODERICK ALLISON
Elaine Grove NW5 |
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