Around 200 people turned out for a mass demonstration in Keswick to vent their disgust at a council decision to suddenly shut the town’s pool and leisure centre.
Leaders of Allerdale Borough Council arriving at the Rawnsley Centre in the town for a meeting last night ran a gauntlet of chanting and poster-wielding protesters.
Pool and gym users – young and old – turned out enmasse to join in chants of “What do we want? Keswick swimming! When do we want it? Now!”
The large crowd – watched over by two police officers – assembled peacefully outside the venue ahead of a rare meeting in Keswick of the full council, which is headquartered more than 20 miles away in Workington.
Although the pool decision was not on the cards, Labour opposition councillor Marcus Campbell-Savours, who represents Keswick on Allerdale, had tabled a motion concerning the decision and had called for a mass turn out at the meeting.
His motion called on the ruling Conservative and Independent-led leadership of Allerdale to work up a “shovel ready” plan for a new facility for Keswick, which was successfully agreed, having survived an amendment tabled by the leadership.
However, the Allerdale executive, including leisure and tourism portfolio holder Cllr Tony Markley, repeatedly pledged that a replacement facility is part of its thinking and that it is consulting with the Keswick public on an alternative.
Despite tenders being out for works associated with the plan, many remain sceptical about a replacement with the clock ticking on Allerdale Borough Council as an authority.
By spring 2023, the council will no longer exist as part of a historic restructure of local government in Cumbria which involves all six district councils scrapped and Allerdale’s former territory absorbed into a single ‘west’ council encompassing Carlisle and Copeland.
Doubters remain to be convinced that a new single council in its infancy would have either the funding, resources or legal obligation to pick up a multi-million pound capital project for Keswick.
The point was illustrated by a protester who stormed from the meeting shouting that it could now “take 10 years” for Keswick to get a new pool.
