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SPN DEC 2011 ShowReview


LIW, NEC, BIRMINGHAM, UK


LIW HEARS LOCAL AUTHORITIES ISSUE STARK WARNINGS ON POOLS


The ‘SPATA Pavilion’ was the focal point of the pool section of LIW


The hot tubs on display from Hydropool receive some visitor attention


T


hose running the UK’s larger commercial and local authority pools have to make significant investments in the day to day running of swimming pools – or face a disastrous number of closures. One of the big messages to come out of the three day Leisure Industry Week exhibition at Birmingham’s NEC in September was the critical state of many local authority swimming pools up and down the country.


LIW, which attracted over 9,000 visitors and many specialist pool and spa companies, has always been the focal point for local authority pool managers, engineers and commercial owners. Key visitors at the show included senior local authority personnel from the Local Government’s


Hippo Leisure exhibited its range of water games and entertainments


Regeneration Board and Local Authority Association, the voluntary body for local government. The event also attracted senior pool managers from local authority pools all over the UK. For the third year running the annual LIW event was staged against a background of cost control and public sector savings.


Commercial and leisure centre pool managers and owners are still under pressure to find revenue generating ideas to attract more swimmers but more critically find energy saving systems, more efficiencies and as many ideas as they can to cut costs in order for the pools to stay open. LIW reacted to these needs and the 2011 event had a more appealing feel to it as far as the pool and spa trade is concerned.


“The quality of the visitors to the pool sector was outstanding,” said an LIW spokesperson. Experts from local authorities to the Amateur Swimming Association and Sport England agree there is still a massive investment shortfall when it comes to neglected pools.


Alan Duncan from the LAA told Swimming Pool News: “There is a lot of interest at LIW for us to see if there are any solutions to the problems local authorities face in bringing many pools up to modern standards. Many more pools face closure unless something is done which is sad because every time a pool closes it does so very often in the face of protests by local people. “Somewhere we have to find the value for money options to improve our pools. For many it’s a case of renovations and repair but for a lot more it’s just a case of offer the public confidence about water quality when they swim. I know a lot of local authorities see shows like LIW


as the opportunity to learn and understand what we can do. We do hope we can work with the pool industry and the expertise it has to solve these problems before the whole thing blows up as a disaster.”


Another pool manager said his problem was finding the right investment.


“I really need to recommend spending between £20,000 and £30,000 on a UV system which will solve our pool quality problems but a payback for such a scheme of two or three years isn’t really an option so we are left with having to make do which isn’t really the best news for our customers. We are here to see if there are any lower cost options which may not solve the problem long term but will improve it short term.” Although projects are under way to build new pools, it is the older pool, many of them 20 or 30 years old, which are being starved of investment. The blame for the state Britain’s pools are now in has been placed mainly on ever tighter council budgets, which for years left little money for the maintenance of ‘discretionary’ services like pools. Councils have tended to concentrate their resources on statutory services, such as education and social services, with leisure frequently bottom of the list. spn


See more images of LIW 2011 online at: www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk


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