Birmingham's Olympic Swimming pool budget to be slashed

Sep 2 2010 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Mail

But a recent change in rules for cities wishing to host the games meant that diving was no longer a compulsory event.

As far as the fun pool was concerned, Coun Mullaney said the council could not afford to go ahead with something that would lose money.

He added: “By getting rid of the diving pool you don’t need such a high ceiling or such a deep pool and that will reduce costs.

“The advice is that we don’t need a fun pool, which we can never make money from, but we do need a 50- metre pool which a lot of swimming clubs would use.”

The move was criticised by leisure scrutiny committee chairman John Alden, who warned that the changes would harm Birmingham’s image.

Coun Alden (Con Harborne) added: “It will be rather sad if we don’t have a diving pool.

“If you are a keen diver you don’t want to have to travel to Sheffield to train, you want somewhere locally in Birmingham.

“If we are going to aspire to be the UK’s city of sport we do need a full range of facilities.”