Tameside calls in wrecking ball at Ashton Swimming Pool
The council has signed off the demolition of the leisure centre, despite receiving a 7,000-signature petition opposing the move.
Tameside Council has closed Ashton Swimming Pool and plans to knock down the facility because operator Active Tameside can no longer afford to run it at a loss and the authority has no funding to carry out required maintenance work.
The decision to bulldoze the baths, formally taken last week, has been criticised by some residents who claim the complex is a valued community facility.
Tameside said it had “carefully considered” calls to keep the facility open, acknowledging in a report to its executive cabinet that Active Tameside’s proposal to close the centre was “disappointing for everyone”.
However, the authority has concluded that it is no longer feasible to keep the 50-year-old building open due to its being “highly inefficient”, as well as rising energy costs and inflation.
“The building has reached the end of its economic life, requiring significant levels of investment to keep it operational,” the report states.
The council said school swimming lessons and swimming clubs had been relocated to the four remaining Tameside Active Swimming Pools in Denton, Copley, Medlock, and Hyde.
It will cost just shy of £1m to knock down Ashton Swimming Pool, according to a report to the council’s executive.
At the same meeting, Tameside also approved the demolition of Longdendale Recreation Centre, another Active Tameside facility, and the sale of a site off Grafton Street in Hyde to an unnamed fast food company.
Could they not replace the building with a new pool and build flats and offices above with solar panels to fund the pool. Swimming pools are such a valuable community resource and should be preserved.
By GetItBuilt!
Replacing a facility like this is expensive, building apartments over it might not be practical given the need for a lot of air con plant which is normally located on the roof. The other aspect is “community need” which is a different world to the one that existed in the 1960s. There is now a lot of competition in this sector and the big franchises have a much better product, access to more capital funds and are commercially more savvy. I have heard the phrase “a valuable community resource” many times, but publicly owned assets are often heavily subsidised and are price sensitive. Where energy costs are no longer manageable, recruitment difficult because of lower hourly rates, and enormous pressure is on the local public purse because of central austerity, such assets reach a ceiling of how sustainable and affordable they can be going forward. This, like many similar public asset decisions, is not about public service but simple economics. I had a similar scenario with local shops on Council shopping parades – everyone wanted to see a greengrocer and baker, but too few people actually used them.
By Dave
Where are children supposed to learn to swim.Yet again TMC ignoring the petition and spend money on the outdoor market they are shocking coucil
By Anonymous
Petition signatures don’t pay for facilities sadly.
They argued people wouldn’t pay the higher fees to cover costs. I think they should have taken that risk.
By Anonymous
Sounds a lot of money for the demolition cost. I hope they aren’t proposing to spend that before they have got a clear redevelopment proposal and a contracted purchaser for the site.
By B Wilder
Did anyone really expect Tameside council to give a darn?
By Patrick
There’s nothing for children to do round here as it is and the council keep destroying stuff our kids can do so no wonder the crime rate keeps going up.
By Anonymous
1 million to knock it down. It wouldn’t take that much to do it up surely?
By Anonymous
STOP VOTING LABOUR IN TO RUN THE COUNCIL THEN!
By Paul Schofield
I suppose the baths will replaced by an enlarged car park and given the fact that town centres and high streets, open air markets etc are dying out, what will the ‘draw’ be to bring in outsiders? Like it or not town centres around the country are being re purposed into more residential areas, which is fine, but don’t take away recreational services.
Labour have been too long in power in Tameside and if seems they have lost their way with regard to what local people need in this modern world. The days of good old Ashton market have gone, time to rethink and resource a changing urban environment.
By Terence Bennison
Surely it would make more sense for Active to totally redevelop the baths and create a super complex in Ashton instead
By Tameside Resident
Tameside Council could not run a bath let alone a swimming pool. They are a disgrace. They, through their bad planning have destroyed what was a good town.
By Tim Jones
The main issue with Tameside Council is that it is in effect a one-party state so needs to take no notice whatsoever of public opinion with barely single figures of opposition councillors on the 57 seat council.
The contrast with neighbouring Stockport is stark where every Councillor has to listen to the electorate in a perennially NOC council, and where nothing can be done without at least two party support.
By AltPoV
Yet one more nail in the coffin of our community.
The council, who are broke and I wonder why, are selling off every single asset they possibly can.
Disused pubs and shops being turned into HMO’s (House of Multiple Occupation) land an buildings being sold, but you can only sell an asset once, what will happen next year to balance the books?
Outside market like a ghost town and the proposed investment has been cancelled. Shopkeers facing high rates and rents, so its no wonder the high and arcades have vacant units.
So is it any real surprise they plan to knock down the baths and leisure centre?
Ashton is supposed to be the centre of Tameside, yet it is being systematically stripped of every community asset and therefore reducing the social environment and places for people of all ages to meet and have enjoyable interaction.
R.I.P. Ashton Under Lyne, a once thriving town, being reduced to a forgotten desolation.
By Anonymous
Ashton’s pool has reached the end of it’s work life but as usual the voice of local people seems not to matter to local government. Tameside council should have replaced the swimming pool years ago. It looked dated in the 1980s when I used to go with my family and school. It’s time the council thought about the the people of tameside and the impact of the closure on the locals who have difficulty traveling to other pools in the area and how the closeness of the pool made it easier for them to get to and meet up with family and friends.
By Graham
Absolutely beggars belief, demolition costing 2 million and millions to be spent on yet another market, what a shocking waste of money.Does this council have a plan to completely destroy Ashton under Lyne town centre.
By Ann English
If councils don’t have the money they cannot do what people want, councils have said for years the government has been cutting there money but nobody listened, councils up and down the country are in financial trouble of all parties
By Overview
It would be very interesting for Tameside Council to put on public display their last 10 years accounts – very interesting indeed
By Annonymous
Turning it into something like Hyde baths would have been good. A great place for kids to have fun with a top notch cafe. Something like that would be full all the time
By ACT
A million pounds to knock it down, someone somewhere is taking the p
By Dave
People need to stop voting these wasters in then, they really don’t give a toss about Tameside or it’s residents
By Dave