It is several weeks now since notice was given of the closure of the Leisure Centre swimming pool followed by its closure at the end of last month.
At the time, we were promised that urgent efforts would be made to try and find a way of keeping it open. To aid this effort, management accounts were requested by the town council to which Freedom Leisure (FL) agreed with the proviso that the council should first sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
We were perturbed to hear both last week and this week that these accounts had not yet appeared, however, it would seem that all the blame should not, after all, rest with Freedom Leisure because RTC seem to have spent the best part of a month trying to decide who should sign the NDA and in what capacity, a question that will not finally be decided and approved until a council meeting on Monday. After that, we will have to see how long it takes for the accounts to travel from the Leisure Centre all of half a mile to the town hall.
But this delay is not the only worrying aspect of the matter right now. We have already posed the thought that maybe FL wants to close the whole centre down and this concern has been increased this week with accounts of attendance at the gym dropping, the darkness over the pool giving an uninviting look to the building, new members being asked to pay, as part of the cost of joining, for use of a pool that is closed. Not only this but running water was cut off for several days last week to the showers and W.C.s, with staff told to bring buckets of water from the pool to flush. The pool itself has sprung a leak and a hose is now being used 24 hours a day every day to keep it full. Earlier this week there was no hot water for gym users to take a shower or even wash after their gym sessions.
This gives every sign of management that has given up and is prepared to run the facility down until it is forced to close.
If Rye is to retain a working and very popular leisure centre then both RDC and RTC need to get their act together and treat the situation as the emergency that it is. At the current rate of progress, there will be no leisure centre by the time any decisions are taken on how to run it.
The lacklustre performance of both councils relating to the pool is in sharp contrast to the ability of Rother and ESCC to raise yet more money to pour into the white elephant that is the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. They have just received a grant from Arts Council England - part of an £8million package of awards to arts and heritage projects around the county.
One cannot help noticing that despite the town council claiming that conversations have been going on with Rother since this paper was advised about them a year or so ago, not a single penny or a single proposal for the future of out own piece of heritage, the Landgate, has yet been forthcoming. It sometimes makes one wonder what the purpose is - other than turning out on formal occasions in their full regalia - of our town council.
