Letter to the press

Dear Sir,



I was Present at last Tuesday’s Environment & Community Committee and was sad at the news regarding Harlow Pool.



I was 10 before I learnt to swim and spent hours in Harlow Pool playing catch-up to my classmates. I was lucky to have friends in Harlow Swimming Club, who helped me with this important aspect of life.



My thoughts are with those now in the situation I was 26 years ago and how this could affect their lives. If no alternative provision can be found, how many 8 and 9 year olds could arrive at secondary school without basic swimming skills? So I was pleased to see the Conservative amendment got the support it deserved and officers will be looking to find a partner to contract the supply of this service for all who want it, at other pools nearby, with transport included, at the same price as a swim at Harlow Pool.



I also want to know how we got to this situation in the first place. There has obviously been a lack of investment, but what surprised me was that both joint leaders have been conspicuous by their absence on this issue, both in person and in press comment.



Only recently you could not keep them quiet about the Council’s rise from poor to good, but sadly luckily the auditors just missed out on the three stories that have now hit the headlines. First the Playhouse budget fiasco, followed by the pool farce, and now the budget crisis. There is a familiar smell of decay about Harlow’s Liberal-Labour Administration that reminds me of the whiff around the Labour Government as it spirals from blunder to blunder in its inevitable demise.



I am glad the Council’s Conservative group also forced through the creation of a working party to find out how and why this service got into the state it has and make sure this never happens again.



Yours truly,



Lee Dangerfield