On Monday night Ivan Horsfall Turner, the chief executive of Freedom Leisure, attended a meeting of Rother District Council's Oversight and Scrutiny Committee, where the only item on the agenda was Rye swimming pool. A team of nine Rye Town councillors went to Bexhill to observe and scrutinise the committee in action, and to show Rother and Freedom Leisure how important the pool is to our town and surrounding area. In addition, a number of Rye citizens also went out on a cold and wet night to see and be seen!
Rye’s mayor, Andi Rivett, was invited to sit at the committee table and was the only person other than Rother councillors who was allowed to speak and ask questions.
First, an exhaustive presentation by Mr Horsfall Turner highlighted the desperate financial straits that the massive raise in energy prices has placed Freedom Leisure in and, he hoped, explain the company’s decision to first close Rye swimming pool until the new year in order to cut immediate costs.
Without public subsidy, he maintained that the whole Rye leisure complex was under threat from 2026 when Freedom Leisure’s contract with Rother for Rye (both the "dry" sports centre and the "wet" swimming pool) runs out. Mr Horsfall Turner said that the current predicted annual loss of £80,000 on the Rye centre had to be plugged by public money – from central government, Rother or Rye Town Council.
Andi Rivett asked three searching questions about the nature of the Freedom Leisure’s contract with Rother and also highlighted that the company’s recent initial public promises to keep the dry side of Rye Leisure Centre running with no changes to opening hours lasted only a matter of days. But Andi thanked Freedom Leisure for quickly reversing these cuts when they had been brought to Mr Horsfall Turner’s attention.
Andi stressed how much the swimming pool meant to the people of Rye, many of whom had collected and donated money to get it built two decades ago, and how Ryers would work hard to get it re-opened and kept open. He stressed Rye Town Council was keen to continue to work with both Rother and Freedom Leisure to come up with a workable solution and this was echoed by the other parties.
You can watch the webcast of the meeting here.
