The Southern Swimming Pool Board (SSPB) says it didn’t request an additional £220,682 for subvention payment, as a report suggests.
It says that “the SSPB subvention payment has been frozen for the last 3 years”.
The report into regional sports hubs has been issued by the Department of Education, Sports and Culture (DESC) and the Department of Infrastructure (DOI).
Southern Pool
The Board has said that a statement within the report is “misleading” as the report states that “an estimated £1million is required to extend the Southern Pool’s lifespan beyond the short term but this figure doesn’t improve the facility”.
It says its “misleading as it relates to a total estimated maintenance cost over the next 30 years”.
Adding that “If the pool was replaced at the same time as CRHS, it would only need maintaining for 5 years and would cost nowhere near £1million. By comparison, the NSC maintenance costs are £5.6 million over the same period.”
It says there has been “no calculation of the extra financial and time costs to transport 750 children to other facilities, assuming there is availability, if Southern Pool were to close. The analysis is incomplete without this figure”.
Flawed and inaccurate
According to the Board, “the report is flawed, inaccurate and incomplete and should be adjusted to fairly represent the situation before being presented to Tynwald in February 2024”.
Although the Board says that there is another solution to DESC’s financial constraints which would enable all existing facilities to continue without any additional funding.
It suggests that “all the regional pools could operate within their existing subvention payments and the NSC must adhere to its budget rather than just being allowed to overspend”.
Adding that “if DESC wishes to continue financing deficits at the NSC, it could ask for the eastern local authorities to pay a leisure rate like all the other local authorities across the island”.
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