Rye Pool to close
Freedom Leisure has announced that the swimming pool at Rye Sports Centre will close from 1 November “until further notice”. The stated cause is the rise in energy costs, and it is suggested that the pool, which it manages in conjunction with Rother District Council, will in practice stay closed beyond next spring unless there is by then a significant lowering of the price of energy or increased government support is offered. The gym and other sports facilities will remain open.
A local petition protesting against the closure had already gathered over 1,500 signatures by last weekend.
MP Sally Ann Hart wrote to the company’s managing director Jeff Hart (presumably no relation) last week referring to “the huge impact on individuals, families and children living not only in Rye, but also in the surrounding villages”. Closure “will rob our community of a vital asset”, she wrote. She referred to the government’s “substantial support” under the Energy Bill Relief Scheme and told Mr Hart that “as a not-
for-profit charitable trust, your ‘mission’ is to ‘improve lives through leisure’ and ‘improve the health and well-being of our communities’”.
At the time of going to press no response has been published. However, Ivan Horsfall-Turner, the company’s CEO is quoted in the Rye News as saying: “ Operating and maintaining swimming pools is a large proportion of our overall energy costs. As a not-for-profit leisure trust, we operate at very low surpluses and these increases simply cannot be absorbed by Freedom Leisure.”
In the meantime the company has also announced that it is reducing temperatures in other swimming pools it is keeping open in East Sussex, including presumably at Summerfields. It has not, however, responded to a request for information as to new thermostat levels.
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