Southwell leisure centre plans thrown into doubt by council

Plans for a new swimming pool in Nottinghamshire are in doubt after a council said it wanted to withdraw £5.5m for the development.

Newark and Sherwood District Council (NSDC) had allocated funds to build a new pool in Southwell on land next to the old site in Nottingham Road.

It criticised Southwell Leisure Centre Trust's work on the scheme, which it said was "consuming of too much time".

The trust said it had hit unexpected issues and still hoped to proceed.

The main pool has been closed since October, after it started leaking 8,750 litres of water a day - a problem the council said would cost £645,000 to repair.

The council took over the management of the centre under a 25-year lease in 2021, when the trust could not afford to maintain the facility, and said it had spent £352,000 on historical repairs to the existing pool, with further work planned to cost £750,000.

In January the council said progress stalled as some members of the trust wanted the existing pool repaired before the new one was built and the trust said it could not move forward as the council wanted to be "gifted" the site for free.

The council said a proposal would be submitted to its cabinet on 14 May to withdraw the £5.5m.

Announcing the move, it said it was "still waiting for a public commitment from [the trust] to replace and not repair the pool and to support freehold transfer of its land", and said it had lost confidence in the trust.

"The time has come to draw to a close something that was only ever intended to be positive for the health and well-being of the local community but has become divisive, consuming of too much time, and bogged down in process and endless excuses to not move forward," the council said.

Council leader Paul Peacock added: "We've made very little progress and the response from the trust has lacked the urgency and commitment that is needed."

Jeremy Berridge, chairman of the trust, said the trustees needed to get Charity Commission approval regarding the sale of the land, and also as they had six district councillors serving as trustees their recusal left them below the quorum to make decisions.

He said a meeting was being held on Saturday, with the trust aiming to appoint a new trustee by next week.

"I very much hope the district council will give us a little time to sort this out, because it's not a problem of our own making, but I can't guarantee it," he said.

"We weren't quorate, we couldn't make a decision, we had to find a way to do that, [and] we gave the council a direction of travel, so that's all we could do.

"I think [the district council] have been a tad unfair - perhaps they didn't appreciate the difficult constitutional position the trust was in, and we've been working very hard to remedy the problems.

"There's no lack of goodwill from us."

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