Birmingham Council may replace historic old baths with new facilities

Dec 13 2007 By Neil Elkes, Local Government Correspondent, Birmingham Mail

BIRMINGHAM'S historic swimming pools and leisure centres may be replaced with modern state-of-the-art sports centres under a new masterplan.

Council leisure bosses are considering ditching ageing and poorly maintained pools such as Moseley Road Baths and Erdington Pool and Turkish Baths under the plan.

They believe that new sports centres with fun pools, saunas and fitness clubs would prove more popular and more cost effective to city residents.

Cabinet member for sport and leisure Coun Ray Hassall said that decisions would be made early next year once Sport England had completed a masterplan assessment of facilities in the city.

He was speaking at the leisure scrutiny committee where the cost of a complete restoration of the century old Moseley Road Baths would cost up to £20 million.

He said: "These pools are about 80 to 100 years old and have been poorly maintained for decades.

"In Wolverhampton they took the decision to close a pool and build a brand new one with all the modern facilities; a jaccuzzi, sauna, steam room and gym.

"The participation rate was 6,000 a month before and 40,000 a month after the new pool opened. It shows that people will use a new pool.

"Our ageing buildings might be why we are among the lowest of the core UK cities for adult participation in sport," he added.

He added that with modern energy efficiency measures such as Combined Heat and Power systems the running costs of new pools are much lower.

The leisure scrutiny committee has demanded a full report on the status of Moseley Road Baths to be presented at a meeting early in the New Year.

Chairman Coun John Alden said: "Moseley Road Baths presents us with a major challenge.

"The thorough refurbishment and getting both pools open would cost anything from £5 to £20 million.

"But until there is a proper feasibility study, we are just plucking figures out of the air."