Exciting plans for significant investment in refurbishment and a new leisure hub also proposed

The swimming pools and gyms at Park Pool, Ormskirk and Nye Bevan, Skelmersdale would remain open under proposals unveiled in Our West Lancashire’s alternative budget.

Councillor Adrian Owens said, “The OWL budget to be presented tomorrow includes provision for both pools and the gyms at both sites to remain open and largely operate as they do now though we would introduce an all-party councillor working group to find ways to reduce the subsidy that the pools require. 

We would make savings in the PR team and senior management structure. We would reduce councillor allowances and clampdown on the use of agency staff. We would not fritter away the additional £1.1 million grant which the council received and which was mysteriously left out of the original budget figures despite OWL repeatedly drawing attention to it. The fact that the OWL budget would take less money from reserves than the current budget proposed by officers makes our version more sustainable for the final 3 or 4 years before the council disappears in local government reorganisation.”

Our West Lancashire, the Council Independents also set out a bold new direction for the future of swimming pools in West Lancashire.  Councillor Owens said, “There is more than £10 million in reserves from the levy on new housebuilding in the Borough.  West Lancashire Council will be abolished in 3 or 4 years’ time.  We don’t want that money diverted to spend in Chorley or Leyland or even further afield.

Therefore, we are proposing a £5 million refurbishment of Park Pool in Ormskirk and £5 million down payment on a completely new build leisure hub in Skelmersdale.  This would be supplemented by proceeds from the Skelmersdale Town Centre Masterplan and future levies on new housebuilding.  Importantly too, the fact that we are retaining the subsidy for swimming in the current budget makes the financing of a new centre possible.  The reduced running costs in a newly built leisure centre coupled with higher usage will mean that the amount currently spent on this subsidy can then be redirected and used to offset the interest and loan repayments to build the new pool.” 

Cllr Owens concluded, “Budgets are about choices and we have shown that a radically different and exciting choice is possible. For the sake of a good legacy for West Lancashire by the time we are abolished in 2028 or 2029, I urge all councillors to support our vision.”