Community / Petition presented and motion passed as pool closure reaches council chamber
A PETITION was presented to councillors this morning (Wednesday) on the closure of the Scalloway swimming pool – while elected members also passed a motion on the SIC’s partnership with Shetland Recreational Trust (SRT).
Campaigner Yvonne Clark also spoke at a meeting of the full council, where she said the community was “shocked” by the news from the SRT of the impending closure when it was announced in January.
Speaking after the meeting, she said the Save Scalloway Pool action group will “continue until a sustainable solution is found”.
Meanwhile local councillor Davie Sandison, who presented the motion, criticised the SRT for not formally requesting specific additional funds from Shetland Charitable Trust (SCT) to keep the pool open for a further year to allow further investigation of possible solutions.
The SRT previously said a one-year extension would not have solved underlying financial challenges, but given it was called for by various groups including Scalloway Community Council, Sandison said this was the “biggest injustice” of the closure process.
It comes ahead of the pool closing its doors at the end of the day on Tuesday next week as the SRT looks to cut one of its facilities from its network of eight leisure centres in a bid to become more financially sustainable.
A campaign group was quickly formed after news of the closure in mid-January, leading to a petition which gained nearly 5,000 signatures.
A second petition was created last week, which secured nearly 550 signatures and called on the SIC, SRT and SCT to work together on possible solutions.
It also called on the SRT to reverse its decision. However, last week the charity and its core funder SCT announced the closure was going ahead, with arrangements then put in place for SRT-run lessons to move to the Clickimin Leisure Complex in Lerwick.
Clark said the announcements were “devastating” for those opposing the closure.
At Wednesday’s meeting – which was attended by a number of fellow campaigners – she spoke about the social impact of the SRT’s decision, calling the pool “special” and adding that people of all ages, including folk with additional support needs, use the facility.
Clark – a former PE teacher – cited the high demand for the SRT-run swimming lessons which regularly sell out quickly, and noted the Scottish Government’s recent announcement that it would support free swimming lessons this summer.
She also said school pupils having to travel elsewhere for PE swimming lessons will eat into lesson time. “To close the pool does not make sense,” Clark added.
Councillors also heard about the plight of one mother who said her child gets to go swimming in the pool every week with a member of their school support staff, due to her disability preventing her from participating in PE.
While she has come on “leaps and bounds”, it is said this will come to an end because there is “not enough time or staff to be able to facilitate this at the Clickimin”.
Clark added that SRT-run classes moving to the Clickimin would add extra challenges for people relying on public transport, saying it could essentially take a number of hours to get a bus in, have a half-hour lesson, and travel back out again.
“We ask the SIC to do everything in its power to save Scalloway swimming pool from closure,” she concluded.
The SRT is independent of the council but the SIC is described as its largest customer, with the local authority spending nearly £700,000 in 2024/25 on using the trust’s facilities.
Sandison’s motion instructed SIC chief executive Maggie Sandison to review service agreements between the council and the SRT to assess cost benefits and best value and “whether overall level of charges is appropriate”.
It then further instructs the chief executive to make representation to the charitable trust and SRT, “citing the above factors”.
“The chief executive should seek such information from the trusts to enable her to report back to members on options for a sustainable long-term plan to maintain the operation of the SRT and the Scalloway Pool into the future,” it added.
Speaking at Wednesday’s meeting Davie Sandison said the news of the closure in January came as a “profound shock”.
He echoed concern from the community about the timescale for closure and questioned why the SRT did not formally request funding from SCT for a year’s extension to allow time to look for solutions.
The councillor highlighted how the SRT requested a change in its existing overall funding from SCT to continue running its eight leisure centres, which was ultimately turned down.
“It has left everyone feeling utterly stunned at being strung along with a notion of being taken seriously,” he said.
He said his motion took a “wider and strategic” look at the situation concerning the partnership between the SIC and the SRT.
Sandison said there needs to be mechanisms to ensure “well informed and strong governance around these arrangements”.
He said the closure news being announced with “little or no warning or discussion rips up any faith in our ability to hold partners to higher standards”.
The councillor said he still hoped there is scope for dialogue with the SRT and SCT to look at “all options for retaining and reopening the pool”.
Elsewhere during the item Lerwick North and Bressay councillor Arwed Wenger raised concerns about the financial cost of the pool, but he did not receive any support.
Speaking after the meeting, Clark said the Scalloway pool action group was “delighted” that the motion was accepted and approved by the councillors.
“Hopefully the SIC, SRT, SCT will come together and help save Scalloway pool,” she said.
Both the SRT and the charitable trust released statements at the same time last week to provide an update on the situation with the Scalloway pool.
The charitable trust said it had “reluctantly turned down” an ask from SRT for more funding, with chairman Robert Leask calling it an “incredibly difficult decision”.
The SRT said staff and trustees had decided that a one-year extension of the pool “would not resolve” the underlying financial difficulties, and would “risk further instability”.
It said instead that to “respect the requests of the community council and action group, SRT trustees formally requested of SCT that the multi-year funding application submitted through the SCT large grant scheme be reconsidered to maintain operations across all eight SRT facilities”.
With this knocked back, SRT chairman David Thomson however said 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”.
Charitable trust 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 the charitable trust 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.”
The SRT said in January that even if “massively increased funding became available”, the trust would still have “unsustainable staffing challenges”.
“We have worked extremely hard over the past couple of years, making changes to our structure and operations to deliver the same level of service for the foreseeable future,” its chief executive Robert Geddes said.
“Using all the data available to us to ensure future provision of facilities, trustees are clear this is the most appropriate way forward to achieve that goal.”
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