Closing Scalloway Pool saved SRT from ‘even worse’ situation, chairman says
SHETLAND Recreational Trust (SRT) did everything it could “not to have to close” Scalloway Pool, its chairman has said.
David Thomson said it was “one of the most difficult and unwelcome” decisions the trust had ever made – but said ultimately it had saved them from an “even worse” situation.
Thomson added that the SRT “can’t do anything” to bring Scalloway Pool back in its current financial position.
He was speaking to BBC Radio Shetland on Thursday night’s public platform programme, where questions from Scalloway Pool campaigners were put to him.
The SRT chairman said that the trust “didn’t have a choice” ultimately, pointing to years of stark financial decisions.
“We spent years doing everything we could not to have to close the pool,” he said.
“We spent years not just exploring options but actually delivering options that managed to keep us on an eight site model.”
He said Scalloway Pool “wasn’t closed out of disregard”, and described it as “special, valuable and valued”.
However Thomson said the SRT was an “independent, legally isolated charity” and said it could “only work within the financial reality we have”.
“The alternative would have been even worse,” he added.
Asked if the requests of the community had been ignored, particularly after a petition with more than 5,000 signatures was handed in to the SRT, Thomson strongly disagreed.
He said that petition had led the SRT to go to the Shetland Charitable Trust (SCT) in an “exceptional additional process” to ask for more money to keep the pool open.
That appeal was “ultimately unsuccessful”, he said.
Thomson said the SRT had agreed not to do anything rushed with the vacant Scalloway Pool building, with hopes that it could be kept for future community use.
The SRT chairman said the trust would eventually “reach a point where the intention will be to find a future for that building”.
Later this year there could be a process for taking that forward, he said.
“We want to encourage ideas to come forward,” Thomson added.
He was confident that the SRT can continue to run its other seven leisure centres, saying any more closures are “certainly not going to happen soon”.
“The SRT is on a stable financial footing, which it hadn’t been for a very long time,” he said.
The closure of Scalloway Pool was a “very unpopular but significant change” which “gives us a financial stability”, the SRT chairman said.
He went on to talk about the SRT’s busy summer, saying they had been able to do things that they “would have struggled to do if we were still in financial crisis”.
One of these was replacing all the seats in the health suite at the Clickimin, which he said the SRT was “possibly going to have to close” at one point before the work.
Earlier this month Save Scalloway Pool campaigners undertook a peaceful march through Lerwick in an attempt to maintain pressure on the situation.
The march started outside the Clickimin Leisure Complex – the headquarters of SRT – before walking past SCT and Shetland Islands Council offices.
The decision by SRT to close the Scalloway pool was announced in January, with the last session taking place at the end of March before the building was closed and fenced off.
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