Town Mayor Andi Rivett will hold a public meeting at the leisure centre this Saturday to gather even greater public support to save our swimming pool.
Rye residents have responded in no uncertain terms following Freedom Leisure’s announcement last Thursday, that they plan to close the town swimming pool for the winter.
Social media has been flooded with demands to keep the pool open, many arguing it serves a much wider area than just Rye while also being a tremendous asset for those suffering from mental and physical difficulties as much as a recreational facility.
Helping to drum up support for the campaign this Saturday will be Ryebellion Drummers, who will open and close the meeting which starts at 10am.
In a statement to Rye News this week Mayor Rivett said: “It is a friendly gathering of the people of Rye and district to show Rother District Council (RDC) and their operators, Freedom Leisure (FL), how valuable this resource is to not only the people of Rye, but those in neighbouring areas, our school children, and of course visitors to the town.
"Whilst I am sure RDC and FL are aware that there is great sadness at its potential loss, I am not sure that they know the full extent of the impact this will have on our town. We have thus far heard how people who have suffered considerable mental and physical ill- health have benefited from swimming, how such exercise has reduced their medication, made them feel so much better and alive, and is an opportunity to meet others and enjoy socialising in what is otherwise a very lonely world for them. In a week where RDC published its health and wellbeing strategy that fully recognises how important exercise, socialising and getting out are to people, Rye gets this news from Bexhill!
"I think it has come as a massive surprise to everyone – no one here saw this coming. And it has happened so quickly. There has been no time for consultation and we haven’t had time to put forward potential solutions.
"We all know that, at the end of the day, this is about money, and we live in very difficult times where we are all having to make sacrifices and cutbacks. But has the potential cost to the health service been weighed into the factor? This is too great a sacrifice for those for whom it is a lifeline.
"It is also too great a sacrifice for the hundreds of school children who use the pool weekly. Learning to swim is rightly a compulsory subject. We do not want to see children’s lives put at risk if they try to swim in dirty rivers or out at sea unsupervised.
"It is also slipping further down the road of reducing services in our town that has lost all the banks, seen shops close, and now this – will we have one less visitor attraction for tourists to come to?
"RDC and FL have, thus far, not told us details about their budget deficit, what alternatives they have looked into, how more imaginative use of their budget could be applied, how more marketing could bring in a greater footfall, the use of alternative greener energy supplies, recruiting more volunteers to help, and all these sorts of things. Instead, we’ve just been slapped in the face with 'It’s closing, tough'.
"There also appears to have been no thought given to the environmental impact – if they drain off the pool where is all that chlorinated water going to go – back gardens, school playing fields, the allotments which are homes to diverse wildlife? There is lip service that this may be a temporary closure but we all know for a fact, once a pool is closed down it is prohibitively expensive to bring it back into operation.
"I hope many people will give up an hour of their Saturday morning to show that we cannot lose this service – if RDC and FL listen to and engage with people they may find a solution, instead of using this blunt instrument that is a sacrifice too far for us all.”
