In these pages last Friday, our Conservative MP wrote that she was concerned we might miss the August 11 deadline to apply for funding from the Sports England fund set up to support struggling swimming pools.
Since being elected in early May, Labour councillors Cheryl Creaser and Simon McGurk have worked hard, alongside many in the community, Rye Town Council, and Rother council officers, to find the best solution to getting Rye pool back open. When Labour formed a new administration at Rother in alliance with other parties to work together in the common interest, your Labour councillors ensured that the agreement included a firm commitment to prioritise getting Rye pool back open.
There is a much work going on within Rye Town Council, as Mayor Andi Rivett has spoken about on these pages, to ensure Rye pool has a more sustainable footing in future.
One vital part of that is securing funding from the Sports England fund. The fund was announced in the March budget, but details of how to apply were slow to materialise. Three months later the fund was launched on June 30 with more information, and then on Friday, August 4 it opened for applications with a deadline this week. Your Rye Labour councillors Cheryl and Simon alongside Rother cabinet member Cllr Hazel Timpe and Rother staff have been hard at work preparing a quality bid for submission this week with Rye pool as the first priority across Rother.
It’s a shame our Conservative MP took to these pages on the very first day the fund opened for applications to accuse Labour councillors of missing a deadline, rather than offering a hand behind the scenes with the hard work going on.
And we must not lose sight of why we found ourselves in a situation with Rye pool closing its doors, as Helena has written about on these pages. Leisure facilities, like the rest of us, have faced spiralling energy costs. Our Conservative government spent last summer having a leadership contest with the winner crashing the economy instead of tackling energy bills before the winter. And thirteen years of Conservative government has failed to prepare and refused to invest in energy security, leaving bills higher and our country less resilient. It is directly because of this failure to make the UK energy independent that we are so exposed to the fluctuations of the global gas market, which has been too easily manipulated by Putin. Other countries, which are more energy secure, have not been impacted as heavily as us. To get to grips with rocketing bills, we need long-term solutions that cut bills for good. That is why a top priority for a Labour government will be to turn the UK into a clean energy superpower.
So perhaps our Tory MP could spend her time lobbying her government for more funding for Rye pool, rather than making confused and ill-informed criticisms of your hard-working Labour councillors in this newspaper.
Labour MP candidate for Hastings and Rye Helena Dollimore
Rother district councillors Cheryl Creaser and Simon McGurk
