Community / Campaigners persist despite latest pool setback
THE SCALLOWAY Community Council and campaigners have come together to express their disappointment after it was reaffirmed that the village’s swimming pool will close at the end of March.
They said the community is “devastated and appalled” after announcements made by operator Shetland Recreational Trust (SRT) and its core funder Shetland Charitable Trust (SCT) on Wednesday.
It was confirmed that SCT had turned down a request for more funding for SRT ahead of the closure of the Scalloway pool on 31 March.
While services will stop after that date, SRT said it will retain ownership of the building for a longer period of time to “give the community further opportunity to suggest alternatives and allow the possibility of reopening should a sustainable long-term solution be identified”.
The community council and Scalloway Pool action group said they are in the process of requesting copies of letters sent between the two trusts to “fully understand the rationale of both their positions”.
They said they wanted to again call on the SRT, SCT and Shetland Islands Council to “get together and work together to find a solution”.
The campaign group oversaw a petition which gained nearly 5,000 signatures.
It has now launched a new petition calling for the decision to close the pool to be reversed, and for the two trusts and the SIC to work together to find a “sustainable solution” to keep the pool open.
The community council and campaign group also questioned why the SRT or the SCT did “not consider lifeline funding of no less than one year as requested by the community to enable time for meaningful discussions between both parties and the SIC”.
They said the community feels “let down by the apparent lack of engagement between both SRT and SCT” to discuss solutions, and questioned how the closure of the pool “saves the £300,000 deficit”.
SRT chairman David Thomson said yesterday that they had heard the pleas from the community for the pool to remain open, and that the trust had tried to do what was asked of them.
“Unfortunately, Shetland Recreational Trust and our facilities cannot realistically be operated on a year-to-year basis with no certainty beyond that,” he said.
“As an independent charity with serious legal obligations, we can only base our service on long-term commitments.
“SRT trustees agreed we would do what we can and our decision to put the building into suspension rather than permanently shuttering anything still allows the community a chance to explore whether a sustainable future can be identified.”
The SRT said its trustees had asked the charitable trust for more funding to keep its eight facilities open, but had been told that this was not available.
SCT chairman Robert Leask said its trustees had met three times to consider the funding request from the recreational trust.
He added they had “reluctantly” decided that it could damage SCT and put its guaranteed funding with other organisations at risk.
“Our financial advisers say we already spend to our maximum sustainable level on grants, which is £10m a year,” Leask said.
“To go beyond that to boost SRT as a special case was felt by trustees to be unwise and unfair to the other charitable groups.
“Almost all these 30 organisations require more funding than we are able to give them.”
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