An unfortunate situation is brewing in the City of Gloucester, England as the longstanding home of a local swimming club has closed unexpectedly.
Earlier this week it was revealed that both GL1 Leisure Centre and Oxstalls Sports Park were closing immediately and may not reopen until September 2024.
Gloucester City Swimming Club has trained at the GL1 site since 1910, representing the only age group swimming club in the City of Gloucester.
According to the swim club’s chair Abi Poyntz-Wright, “GL1 is a leisure centre that is owned by the City Council but has been operated by a charity, the Aspire Sports and Cultural Trust, for 15 years.
“Their existing contract had come to an end but as I understand it the [city] council had asked them to run it for another year so that they could run a tender for a new operator.
“On Thursday 28th September we were told that the leisure centre would be closing at 2pm the next day for a staff meeting but that our training at 5.45am on Saturday 30th would be able to go ahead as planned. Instead at that meeting on 29th, staff were informed that the trust was declaring insolvency and all the staff were made redundant.”
Gloucester Live reported that Gloucester MP Richard Graham has been providing updates on Facebook, saying he has been in communication with schools to find ways of their facilities being made available to sports clubs and groups. The city’s Labour candidate Alex McIntyre branded the closure as “unacceptable” and has launched a petition to get the council to save it.
Poyntz-Wright said, “GL1 was the only 25m pool in the city, and between the 3 pools it contained had 12 lanes. There were days when, as a club, we had all 12 lanes booked for hours and that is difficult to replace. Especially when there are other clubs in the area who already swim elsewhere. There isn’t another 8 lane pool in the county.
In terms of a contingency plan, she stated, “We have found a couple of 20m pools where we should be able to get weekday morning sessions, and are continuing to put together an emergency timetable to get members back in the water later this week. But it will mean travelling and if it carries on for long we’ll loose members and some of those will give up swimming completely.”
Gloucester City Swimming Club is a committee-led club, with the committee made up of volunteer parents. It employs 4 paid coaches, including strength and conditioning.
The club has 115 regular swimmers, ranging from children starting their competitive swimming journey at 8 years old to young adults moving into university programs. They also have members who return to train with us during their university holidays, swimmers from clubs in the surrounding area who come for top-up sessions and the outfit provides the swim training for Hartpury College’s Modern Pentathlon training programme.
A 14-year-old swimmer detailed the impact this unexpected closure has had on her. “I have been swimming for Gloucester for 5 seasons, going on to my 6th now and it is my life. The poolside at GL1 is my home and my team is my family.
“When I found out about the closing of GL1, it took a couple hours for it to hit me before I realized that the place I go everyday is not even open anymore.
“I currently don’t know what to do with myself with no training, yet it’s only been 3 days. Without it, I feel lost, and it makes me worry about losing the progress we’ve made as a team, as well as myself as an individual.”
Open letter to @GlosCC re the sudden closure of GL1 including heartbreaking testimonials written by our members. Please read & share 🙏🏼
Letter:https://t.co/aCVGgu2Dua
Testimonials:https://t.co/0gwvAGlF0I@GlosLiveOnline @bbcpointswest @itvnews @dawnlimbu @KenGoodwinITV
— Gloucester City Swimming Club (@Glos_Swim) October 2, 2023
I swam here 100s of times, so many great memories from this pool
Do any pools actually make money? Or is it just charity from government or a school.
It’s a service supplied by a municipality to it’s community. Building and Operations are funded by taxpayers. Unfortunately, Representative are not required to utilize those taxes for the maintenance and upkeep of said facility.