A Council scrutiny committee will decide on 12th January whether to undertake a public review of Labour’s plan to withdraw the Yearsley Pool’s £250,000 a year subsidy.
Yearsley Pool
LibDem councillors have proposed that a review begin straight away giving managers the maximum time possible to find alternative sources of income and savings prior to the summer 2016 cut off date.
The early review has the backing of the Yearsley Pool Action Group which has submitted a 4,500 signature petition supporting the retention of the pool.
Although the Council had agreed to hold talks in early 2016 about the future of the pool, these would be held in private. They would also have presumed that no ongoing subsidy would be available.
One of the factors bedevilling the process is that with Council elections in May, it is likely that the majority of existing Councillors will not be re-elected to the new authority (many have said that they are standing down).
As the decisions of the present Council cannot bind the new one, priorities are likely to change.
Both LibDem and Tory Councillors have said that they want to move resources away from prestige projects preferring instead to improve funding for basic public services. These would include existing leisure facilities.
In 2007, the last LibDem Council invested over £1 million in upgrades to the Yearsley pool. It was expected that this would give the pool a life of over 20 years before additional investment was required.
In January 2011, before coming to power, Labour began to question the future of the facility.