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Closure of Southern Swimming Pool


Major Rushen

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18 minutes ago, Mercenary said:

https://iompopulationatlas.paulcraine.im/blog/index/view/id/33/Births have fallen for a tenth consecutive year

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From Paul Craine (red being births)... would suggest a drop to three swimming pools is not without merit?

It is absolutely the right thing to do.  They should really drop to two or even one.

The people who are going to moan are the ones who live nearest to the first pool to be sacked off because they can’t see the bigger picture.

I wonder what the relevance of “major Rushen” ‘s user name is?

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2 hours ago, CrazyDave said:

Disregarding the landing stage, which is a project that has been poorly managed and has also gone over budget over a time period where nearly every project on the planet has gone over budget.

Most sensible island residents would rather see the frivolous spending such as four swimming pools for an area and population which in the UK probably wouldn’t have one, come to an end.

We need to be realistic.  Four swimming pools would still be borderline justified if we had 100k more people here.

Yet we continue to grow the government headcount for no good reason apart from the voracious desire to empire build. I know which I would rather spend taxpayers' cash on. If usage is so low at Southern, are the attendance figures in the public domain? Perhaps that might explain it, but I would be surprised. The south is more populated than Ramsey, and that pool seems well used whenever I've been there.

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3 hours ago, cissolt said:

Apologies.  I looked on the Manx Radio story, saw no reference to a total sum and in any case thought it was an odd statistic to justify the closure of just one of the three.  But that's the figure that was quoted back in 2022 and it is actually backed up by the Knight, Kavanagh and Page Swimming Pool Review from November 2022 which gives the following amounts for the IOMG subsidy to the regional pools in 2020-21:

Northern  £ 798,600

Western   £ 434,758

Southern   £ 474,044

Total          £ 1,707,402

which happens to be pretty near the 2023-4 Budget for the NSC.  There are also local authority contributions extra to the above (of course the Eastern LAs pay nothing to the NSC) but that's much smaller, around £88 K in total.

 If I was being mischievous, I say the above proves that the pool they should be closing down is Ramsey.  I 'm sure CrazyDave and TVOR  will agree as this would be in line with their principles.

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5 hours ago, cissolt said:

Perhaps a reduction in unneeded civil servants would provide enough revenue to fund the 3 pools, which are a vital lifeline for less mobile people to get exercise, assist with medical conditions, and provide a general asset to the community. 

Not everyone has the ability to get on a bus(mobility scooters and the like) and find great solace in using the facilities.

I am sure the cabal of local MHKs backing it's retention will be successful.  

Reckless gov spending must stop, this in my view is vital community investment.

It's not a "vital lifeline" or "vital community investment" - if the pools closed, life would go on, people would go elsewhere.

If people are so concerned, maybe they should form a company and try running a pool themselves, or mimic the experience by sitting in a urine-tinted bath burning £50 notes.

There's already a hydrotherapy pool specifically designed for the needs of disabled people on Glencrutchery Road in Douglas, which is no more than half an hour away from the majority of the population. 

It's ridiculous for an island with the population of a small town in the UK to be spending millions of pounds annually on multiple swimming pools, just based on an imaginary requirement for a handful of people with mobility issues, that could use an already-extant purpose-built facility instead.

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Sad but it's a reflection of the island as a whole, the place is going down the toilet, thanks to thirty years of incompetence and largesse !

If and when the Buchan site is concreted over by a favourite developer, it could be the pool would be a boon !

Edited by asitis
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9 hours ago, woolley said:

@CrazyDave, why is that confusing? You wouldn't dispute that we continue to build government headcount? Surely it's a no-brainer to reverse that trend as a priority. I'm not talking about wholesale sackings, but at least start to rationalise the nonsense.

It’s confusing because you seem to be questioning if the pool is used (it isn’t in any significant number) and stating that Ramsey is well used, eh. It is also virtually empty most of the time and costs the taxpayer a fortune.

Government headcount is a completely unrelated subject.  Just close the poxy pools, ideally all now but I suppose the next best option is at the end of their useful life when their running costs start to spiral - like Castletown now.  

Edited by CrazyDave
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6 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Apologies.  I looked on the Manx Radio story, saw no reference to a total sum and in any case thought it was an odd statistic to justify the closure of just one of the three.  But that's the figure that was quoted back in 2022 and it is actually backed up by the Knight, Kavanagh and Page Swimming Pool Review from November 2022 which gives the following amounts for the IOMG subsidy to the regional pools in 2020-21:

Northern  £ 798,600

Western   £ 434,758

Southern   £ 474,044

Total          £ 1,707,402

which happens to be pretty near the 2023-4 Budget for the NSC.  There are also local authority contributions extra to the above (of course the Eastern LAs pay nothing to the NSC) but that's much smaller, around £88 K in total.

 If I was being mischievous, I say the above proves that the pool they should be closing down is Ramsey.  I 'm sure CrazyDave and TVOR  will agree as this would be in line with their principles.

Probably the context you're missing is the southern ones costed £474k to run in past operational expenditure, but needs a significant capex investment and overhaul to keep running it. Anyone that has visited it recently could tell you that and no doubt they have various reports that areas are end of life/non compliant/potentially unsafe. Whereas Ramsey as a much newer facility does not have the same investment requirements hanging over it's head.

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1 hour ago, asitis said:

Sad but it's a reflection of the island as a whole, the place is going down the toilet, thanks to thirty years of incompetence and largesse !

If and when the Buchan site is concreted over by a favourite developer, it could be the pool would be a boon !

People moan about government spending money, then when they sensibly decide to close something that is costing a fortune and which is replicated just up the road, people moan again.

Its not a sign of anything going down the toilet, its a sensible decision to close a very expensive, little used facility that is at the end of its life.

Plus who on earth is a favourite developer?

Edited by CrazyDave
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1 minute ago, Banker said:

What a load of crap.

Does this really go to a tynwald vote?  That’s insane, Haywood, Glover and all the southerners will just vote against it even if really they know it’s the sensible thing to do.

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