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The following is the text of our letter to the local newspaper the Mercury. Published on the 25th August issue

Council pool cred dries up

We write in response to the letter of Cllr Gavin Moore, Deputy mayor of Lewisham on last week’s Mercury dated 4th August 2004.
We are writing as coordinators of the Save Ladywell Pool campaign, the residents and users group that aims at having the Mayor of Lewisham considering the negative impact of the closure of the Ladywell Leisure Centre.
We ask this Council to keep the present swimming facility operational until a replacement is delivered.
We have so far collected over 2000 signatures and this number is growing at an ever increasing rate.
The Council's proposal to demolish the best swimming pool in the borough without any consultation or attempt to do any study on the effects that this closure will have on its residents/taxpayers has proven to be one step too far.
This community is uniting against this unacceptable decision.
Our position is available in an expanded form from our web page www.londonpoolscampaign.com/ladywell.
In his letter Cllr Moore is actually stating one of the points that we highlighted too.
The £ 1.8m that the Council spent over the 20 months closure of the LLC was actually an expenditure for the removal of the asbestos present in the building.
As he rightly points out, this sum would have been spent anyway to bring the demolition forward.
In other words the Council spent £ 1.8m of the Sport and Leisure budget to demolish our best swimming pool whilst boasting with the electorate about their generosity and trying to appear concerned about our facilities.
In his letter to this newspaper of the 29/10/03 Mayor Bullock says "As long as I am mayor there will be a top class swimming facility in the centre of our borough and I am looking forward to being the first person into the pool when it re-opens."
If this is a measure of the credibility of this Council's intended policies we think that we have to hang on like a tiger to the existing swimming pool until the new facility is delivered.
We agree on the need for a new secondary school in the borough and we want the Council to demonstrate that they are able to identify suitable sites.
It is just not good enough to think about our swimming pool as a piece of land to be redeveloped.

Max Calò & Ian Crosson
(Secretary & Chair of the Save Ladywell Pool campaign)