'Where will your child learn to swim when Bristol community pools close?' | Bristol

'Where will your child learn to swim when Bristol community pools close?' Bristol

I agree with the teacher in this story very strongly - let nots forget that Jubilee in Knowle, not listed in the story, is due to close in 2011. More on the issue here:
http://vowlesthegreen.blogspot.com/search?q=swimming+pools

Renewable energy systems planned for Hengrove Park developments, especially the Olympic-sized pool???

Its today been reported that 'Bristol to get new Olympic-sized swimming pool' (Bristol Evening Post). Somewhat sensationally done since we've known about the proposed developments at Hengrove Park for some time now (see previous post on the issue here).



New health, education and leisure facilities, especially the big pool, are great, but we should also be retaining local facilities such as Jubilee Pool in Knowle and others (and I dont agree with the PFI method of financing this development). I agree with Simon Wilkins, club coach of Bristol North Swimming Club, who said, in the Bristol Evening Post that he

...felt that the new pool would be a boost to the city, but would not compensate for the loss of so many other pools in Bristol.

He said: “It is a great idea to have a 50m pool in the area.

“Bristol really should have had a 50m pool 10 years ago.

“It has been a long time coming, and hopefully it will attract bigger competitions and more swimming to the city.

“But the number of pools being built does not compensate for the number that have been shut down in recent years.”

We need more sources of healthy exercise not less. Local facilities are an important community feature, especially for those who find it most difficult to travel, such as the elderly and families with young children.

I'd also like to see renewable energy systems used in the new leisure centre, especially to heat the water in the new pool (which would otherwise consume a massive amount of polluting and non-renewable fuel). I've sent the email enquiry copied below to the City Council Sustainable Projects Team (hengrovepark@bristol.gov.uk) and will post again on any reply I get (I had no reply to my last enquiry on this topic):

Can you tell me if there are any plans for the use of renewable energy systems in any of the developments planned for Hengrove Park? The glossy leaflet I received describing the development some time ago refers to 'the highest level of design and sustainability standards' and so I'm hopeful that you may be able to answer positively. It seems to me that the heating the very large amount of water in the proposed swimming pool would be ideally suited to renewable energy and would otherwise consume a very large amount of polluting fossil fuel. Hope you can help.

Olympic-size pool yes - but keep local pools like Jubilee in Knowle too

Copy of my letter, published in the Bristol Evening Post on Friday 8 Aug:

A new olympic-sized pool at Hengrove Park, would be great, but we should also be retaining local facilities such as Jubilee Pool in Knowle and others. Whilst campaigning as the Green candidate for Knowle in the last local elections I received a letter from local Labour campaigners stating that Jubilee Pool should stay open but now the Labour Cabinet running Bristol are set to close it once Hengrove Park is developed ('Bristol swimming pools axed for new leisure centre', Post, 5 Aug)!!

We need more sources of healthy exercise not less. Local facilities are an important community feature, especially for those who find it most difficult to travel, such as the elderly and families with young children. Its also more polluting if people have to travel further to a more remote pool as its beyond walking distance for many and they will tend to go by car.

I'd also like to see renewable energy systems used in the new leisure centre, especially to heat the water in the new pool (which would otherwise consume a massive amount of polluting and non-renewable fuel). I've written to the council making enquiries about this twice but have not even received an acknowledgement from them.

Why vote Green? Part Four...

Local services and facilities of all kinds eg health facilities, old folks homes, schools, libraries, swimming pools (eg Jubilee Pool in Knowle, pictured), buses and trains, pubs, corner shops, the local high street…should be maintained and enhanced not threatened and cut. All too often the big three parties take a very narrow view, forgetting the vital social and environmental benefits of what’s available locally. Factor in benefits to the community along with purely financial considerations and you get a very different outcome to closures and cuts. The strong Green instinct for joined up (systems) thinking, for healthy local communities and being human scale means we always fight to protect local services.

This post is the fourth in a series giving positive reasons to vote Green in the run up to this years local elections and general election.

Extra pollution from cars if Jubilee is closed

I've been doing some calculations on additional carbon emissions that would occur from a rise in car use if the Jubilee Swiming Pool closed.

What I've done is to compare the carbon emissions from walking a short distance, say 1km, to the local pool, with driving say 5km to a new pool when constructed at Hengrove Park, in a medium sized petrol engined car (some will drive further of course). It is reasonable to assume that this shift from walking to driving will happen a lot should Jubilee close, if people want to continue to swim, especially if elderly people or kids are involved .

Basically I've found that walking is between 15 to 30 times more energy efficient per km. Walking to Jubilee would mean carbon emissions of approx 15 grams per visit, which is easily environmentally sustainable. Driving to a new pool at Hengrove would emit 2kg (2000 grams) of carbon ie an environmentally unsustainable 133 times more (due to the longer distance and the much lower efficiency of car travel combined; photo represents the carbon increase to scale).

Carbon emissions from travel of 2kg per visit amounts to approximately a mans own weight in carbon each year if he drives 5km to a pool about once a week! In contrast walking to Jubilee the same number of times produces just 0.75 kg - less than a bag of sugar.

The point of all this is to show that taking a purely financial decision to close the pool is very narrow minded. The preliminary calculations I've done show that locally available services and facilities like swimming pools have a value to our community and wider society beyond money. If we are to become a low carbon 'green city' for instance (and the City Council is currently blowing this particular trumpet loudly!) we need to measure the value of local facilities not only in financial terms but also in social and environmental terms terms. We dont know what the total impact of the loss of Jubilee would be because we aren't measuring everything, yet despite this the council has already decided that the pool will close - not a green decision or a green approach to the issue at all.

Vowles backs Eddy's call for pool closures to be reassessed

Its welcome news that Jubilee Swimming Pool will remain open (along with Bishopsworth Pool) for a bit longer than originally anticipated (‘Delight at pools remaining open’, Post, April 15). I’m altogether opposed to Jubilee’s planned closure and regret that this reprieve, due to delays to work on the new Hengrove Park pool, is being looked on as merely temporary. I agree with Councillor Richard Eddy’s when he said ‘With this extra time I think their fate should be reassessed.’

Closing Jubilee and other pools may put people off going for swim, a very healthy physical activity, just when we are supposed to be trying harder to encourage it. It may be those who find it most awkward to travel further that are most put off, such as the elderly or families with young children.

Replacing a short, no cost, sustainable walk to the local pool with an unsustainable and more expensive car trip is not good in these times of all times. Swimmers in Knowle would have to travel further to swim after the closure, adding to air pollution and climate change.

I believe all local councillors should work harder to stand up for locally available facilities and feel very let down that Jubilee has apparently been given up on by some. I want the council to work hard to get a more rounded, balanced, less purely financial, greener and more democratic decision made on Jubilee Pool and other local pools. Other local community services and facilities should be similarly looked upon.

I would like to see them reverse the closure decision and go back to the idea of reviewing the situation once the new leisure centre at Hengrove Park opens. I don’t agree with a decision taken on purely financial grounds. Any review should not only be a financial audit but should also be a social and environmental audit, examining the total impact of closure and of alternatives to it. This should be combined with completely open discussions on what it would take to keep Jubilee Pool open with all its users and other interested parties locally. I feel people who really believed in fighting for local facilities would be strongly arguing for this within Bristol's Cabinet.

Voting Green: my ten reasons

1. Voting in another Labour, Lib Dem or Conservative person means supporting the status quo, politics as usual, big party domination or sometimes one party monopoly. Greens improve fairness, democracy and accountability, challenging the political status quo.



2. Fresh, innovative thinking and action is being initiated all over the country and further afield by hundreds of Greens elected as Members of the Westminster and European Parliaments, Members of the Scottish Parliament, London Assembly Members, and Councillors such as the large groups in Brighton and Norwich.



3. Greens are widely recognised for environmental leadership. Economic and social systems exist within the environment and are dependent upon it and Greens – being joined up thinkers – address all issues AND how they interrelate. This is essential if we are to solve problems, take opportunities, build equality and secure our wellbeing.



4. Greens work for strong local economies, keeping wealth circulating within communities, creating secure and stable jobs locally. This promotes wellbeing, fairness, self-reliance and sustainability, through greater local production, improved energy and food security. Greens believe small is beautiful and actively support small, locally owned businesses, local exchange and trading schemes and credit unions.



5. Local services and facilities of all kinds - health facilities, old folks homes, schools, libraries, swimming pools, buses and trains, pubs, corner shops, the local high street...should be maintained and enhanced not threatened and cut.



6. Green commitment to road traffic reduction is high. Traffic congestion causes multiple problems, especially in cities like Bristol – and yet the big parties have neglected to give transport the attention and investment it has long needed. Greens will enable people to access local jobs and facilities close to where they live and promote walking and cycling. They will invest in convenient, affordable, accessible and expanded public transport.



7. Greens believe health, wellbeing and equality should be the measure of progress in society. Public health issues are thus a high priority for Greens and above all favour the prevention of ill-health and the promotion of good health.



8. On environmental issues Greens are several decades ahead. They continue to lead the way: illustrating the interdependence of our economy and society with the environment.



9. Greens work to maximise efficiency, whether energy, water, transport use or other resources. It’s why they would insulate all homes free of charge - warming your homes, saving you money, efficiently and rapidly cutting fuel use and carbon emissions, creating thousands of local jobs.



10. The Green plan for rebuilding the economy - the Green New Deal – is a £45 billion investment to create 1 million jobs. It will begin to build a fair, sustainable economy and society by redesigning the financial system so that it serves the ‘real' economy and local communities.

Children need real: play, food, experiences, interactions & time

We are letting children down very badly in the UK. I’ve written about the importance of understanding children and childhood, boosting outdoors education for children, the effects of air pollution and transport policies on childhood health, the rights of young people to gather in Bristol’s green spaces, and involving and empowering children and their parents within their schools, on this blog (click the label young people). Many other posts relate directly to child wellbeing, such as those on road safety, organic food, loss of community facilities like swimming pools and safeguarding the environment eg open/green spaces on into the future.

It wont surprise readers then that I fully back the letter ‘Let our children play’ sent to todays Daily Telegraph, not just because I’m a green but also because I’m a father and a teacher who worked with kids in secondary schools/colleges for over fifteen yrs.

The list of 300 expert signatories to the letter
is even more impressive and weighty than the 100 or so on a similar letter to the Telegraph in Sept 2006 (see blog entry of Feb 22, 2007).

The BBC headline when reporting this 'No outdoor play 'hurts children'...' is very appropriate. Children need: real play; real food; real first hand experiences of the world; real quality interaction with adults; and real time.

Loss of local services, shops, pubs...makes us less green

My MP, Labour's Kerry McCarthy, has recently confirmed to me in writing that she does not support the Sustainable Communities Bill currently going through Parliament. She said,
'I do not support the Sustainable Communities Bill because I do not think there is any need for a separate piece of legislation on this issue.'

This is a great shame and a mistake. All around the UK local shops, post offices, pubs, services and facilities like local swimming pools, have declined rapidly under the current government, which she supports. This means that any action they have taken on this issue has been far from effective. The Sustainable Communities Bill would on the other hand give real power to local people to take action to protect and enhance their communities. Locally available facilities cut travel, boost quality of life and make us greener.

One would think from what PM Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have said that they strongly favour giving more power to local communities and that therefore they should support the Sustainable Communities Bill. After all in his speech to the Labour Party conference in 2006 Tony Blair said, 'People want power in their own hands...they wont accept a service handed down from on high. They want to shape it to their needs and the reality of their lives.' In addition Gordon Brown said at the same conference, 'People and communities should now take power from the state and that means...a reinvention of the way we govern.'

However, despite what they have said, far from giving power to local communities the Blair/Brown government has centralised power and presided over local community decline, making us a far less green society.

Cut human-caused weather extremes by going green

January 20th marked the four hundredth anniversary of the huge tidal wave around the Bristol Channel that caused so much death, damage and distress. Such an anniversary reminds us of the awesome power of natural forces. This power has been clearly demonstrated to us all in Bristol and across the country in our recent weather, with several deaths resulting.

The tidal wave four hundred years ago was a natural event. Yet we are now living in a time where we cannot say that all the weather extremes we experience are wholly natural events. Firm, reliable and verified scientific evidence as collected together by the UN and others has now been saying for decades that pollution of the atmosphere with carbon emissions has altered our climate and thus our weather. Weather extremes have always happened and always will but science now says that as a result of human behaviour these extremes will occur more frequently and that they will be more intense and damaging.

As I write even more scientific evidence is being presented by the BBC/Open University in their report on the climateprediction.net project. Many Bristolians have taken part in this by downloading climate model software onto their home computers from the BBC website. The findings of this project are stark and go beyond a pleasant Mediterranean climate. Evidence of: increased flooding risk; more powerful storm surges; more torrential rain; stronger heatwaves, and more, are confidently predicted to occur if we dont act to substantially cut carbon emissions. Links between environmental problems are also presented eg year on year decrease of open, green space in Bristol reduces the natural capacity of land to deal with extra rain and so flooding risk rises. Unlike green space tarmac and concrete dont act like a sponge.

Problems like carbon emissions and open space loss caused by human behaviour can of course be changed by altering behaviour. Saving energy through upgrading home insulation keeps you more comfortable and saves you money on bills as well as cutting carbon emissions. Taking the train and/or holidaying in the UK instead of flying cuts emissions but also boosts your local, regional and national economy as you spend here and not abroad - there's also a lot to discover in our diverse country. Helping to save a piece of local open green space from development will maintain the ability of land to cope with rain and campaigning to build and maintain genuinely local facilities like swimming pools cuts car use, making our air healthier to breathe. There are many big plus points in such behaviour change - so go green!

Save local pool, fight climate change

With all the ongoing talk nationally about the Stern Report and the need to fight
climate change my thoughts turned to how we need to make the right
decisions about keeping local facilities (which help us to fight climate change
by reducing our need to travel by car). One campaign I'm involved with is
is trying to save my local swimming pool (Jubilee) from closure. I've found it easy to collect
around 400+ signatures to date on a petition and I know others are also
collecting and so the final total will be very large. I've copied below my letters
to my local councillor and the local paper on this issue.

Original Letter:
The decision to close Jubilee Swimming Pool in Knowle is a mistake. Not
only that, Knowle Councillor Gary Hopkins has broken his election pledge
to 'fight any plans to close Jubilee Pool' on his election address. He now
thinks there is 'no realistic alternative' having agreed to the closure
plan as a member of Bristol's Cabinet. I wonder how the voters of Knowle
feel about being let down like this?

Not long ago £200,000 was spent on refurbishing Jubilee Pool ! It is a
well used and valued local facility. To remove it reduces the quality of
life in Knowle. The availability of goods, services and facilities locally
is a key feature of the quality of life and the capacity to live
sustainably.

Swimmers in Knowle would have to travel further to swim after the closure,
adding to air pollution and climate change. The closure may put people off
going for swim, a very healthy physical activity, and it may be those who
find it most awkward to travel further that are most put off, such as the
elderly or families with young children.

When Councillor Hopkins originally made his pledge to fight plans to close
the pool I was pleased to see someone standing up for locally available
facilities and so now feel very let down. I believe he has not fought very
hard to persuade his Lib-Dem colleagues to take a more rounded, balanced,
less purely financial, greener and more democratic decision.

I would like to see them reverse this decision and go back to the idea of
reviewing the situation once the new leisure centre at Hengrove Park
opens. Furthermore, the review should not only be a financial audit but
should also be a social and environmental audit, examining the total
impact of closure and of alternatives to it. This should be combined with
completely open discussions on what it would take to keep Jubilee Pool
open with all its users and other interested parties locally. I believe
someone who really believed in fighting for local facilities would have
strongly argued for this with Bristol's cabinet.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Second letter:
Many thanks to the Bristol Evening Post for printing my letter about the decision to close Jubilee Pool, Councillor Gary Hopkins broken election pledge and the reply I obtained from him. Its good to debate these things in the open. I must say that I feel very dissatified and in fact quite insulted by his reply though.
I wonder if he communicates with all the people that he represents in Knowle this way? When a person who lives in his ward takes an active personal interest in a local issue is it really relevant that they were not present at the Cabinet meeting where the decision was taken? Is it really relevant that they have not previously had contact with him about the issue. I am politically active but did not write to him in this capacity at all!

Its convenient for Councillor Hopkins to blame others for a decision he and his colleagues have taken. Politics based on accusation and counter accusation is common everywhere, not least in Bristol, but it puts people off and causes politics to come into disrepute. Its gets us nowhere if parties simply blame the previous lot.

He talks of 'Hengrove or nothing' when referring to finance availability. Rather than give up and saying there is no alternative I believe it is well worth continuing to try and continuing to talk to people - a lot can change in four years.

He says he has fought for Jubilee Pool but this fighting it seems has now ended. £200,000 has been spent on a pool that he and his colleagues have now decided must close. I'm sure people were led to believe that when such money was spent it was because the facility had a decent future! It seems like economic madness to me to spend and then close.

He even casts some doubt on whether the Hengove complex will be built, saying 'when (or more rightly if) the Hengove complex is built'. If there is any doubt about Hengorve then why decide to close Jubilee now? I'm afraid I cant follow the logic here and certainly am not aware of any doubts about Hengrove!

Councillor Hopkins is right to say that Jubilee may have closed without the previous campaign to keep it open, in which he played a role. He goes on to make a good case for the pool, talking of it being easily walked to and accessed by public transport - this is the kind of facility we need to keep, but he has given up on it. With a little creativity there may be small scope to improve the Jubilee site in some way.

He said 'unlike the Labour Party we did not lie to people'. I dont find accusations of lies very productive. Though straight talking and rational debate is fine it is an indication of the state of big party politics that they all seem to talk of each other as liars like this.

I cant say I am keen on building a new pool when we already have one that has had a lot of money spent on it. The prospect of a new pool in Knowle would be just that, a prospect - it may or may not happen and the plans for it may or may not be acceptable. What is certain is that a swimming facility now exists here!

I've publicly and regularly called for the protection and indeed enhancement of local facilities in South Bristol for around twenty years, though have had no direct recent involvement over Jubilee until now. As a regular pool user and Knowle resident I was very pleased to see the previous defence of the pool by Councillor Hopkins others - I want that to continue, though I note that he did not comment at all on the substantial point in my original letter. This is that 'I would like to see them reverse this decision and go back to the idea of reviewing the situation once the new leisure centre at Hengrove Park opens. Furthermore, the review should not only be a financial audit but should also be a social and environmental audit, examining the total impact of closure and of alternatives to it. This should be combined with completely open discussions on what it would take to keep Jubilee Pool open with all its users and other interested parties locally'.

Is he not willing to tell me if he agrees with me about the process that should be used to assess the situation and make the decision about the pools future?

Knowle Ward election coverage in Bristol Evening Post

Todays Bristol Evening Post reported on the local election in Knowle Ward where I am the Green candidate. Its a bit of a shame that the Post has not included brief statements from each of the candidates. Some of the election coverage has been bland and lifeless.

However, I was pleased to see that issues I have been very heavily involved in raising and promoting were featured in the report as matters of local note, namely the decision to close Jubilee Swimming Pool (which I have been vigorously opposing) and a local 'grot spot' on Wells Rd suffering vandalism, littering and grafitti (which I obtained local media coverage for - still not cleaned up despite the current owners promise in the press!).

As it happens the petition opposing the closure Jubilee and Bishopworth Pools, raised online by Colin Smith, is due to be handed in by 30 April and I am today delivering 630 signatures that I have organised the collection of to Bristol City Council.

Featured opposite the report on Knowle is one on the Hengrove Ward. Included there is the issue of New Oak School, saved from becoming part of the Oasis Trust Academy by a vigorous campaign by local people, which I was very actively involved in supporting by applying additional Green Party political pressure through the media.

Congratulations to my opponent Superman but I'm afraid your policies are plain wrong

Many congratulations to my political opponent in Knowle, Lib-Dem Councillor Chris Davies, for being awarded his second Bristol Evening Post Gold Star award ('Second Honour for Chris', Bristol Evening Post, March 9). As the Lib-Dem newsletter I recently received correctly said, his actions in first saving the life of his young next door neighbour for gold star number one and then foiling a bank robbery at the Nat West Bank on Wells Rd for gold star number two, are indeed reminiscent of superman!

Any superhero would be proud of the two achievements and so Councillor Davies' personal qualities cannot be faulted.

However, I'm afraid my superhero opponents Lib-Dem policies for Knowle and Bristol are plain wrong.

For example would he agree with me that the decision to close Jubilee Swimming Pool in Knowle is a mistake and that his fellow Knowle Lib-Dem Councillor Gary Hopkins broke his election pledge to 'fight any plans to close Jubilee Pool'? Does he think, as the Lib-dem Cabinet does, that there is 'no realistic alternative' to closing the pool ?

Removing a local pool reduces the quality of life in Knowle. The availability of goods, services and facilities locally is a key feature of the quality of life and the capacity to live sustainably. Swimmers in Knowle would have to travel further to swim after the closure, adding to air pollution and climate change. The closure may put people off going for swim, a very healthy physical activity we are meant to be encouraging. It may be those who find it most awkward to travel further that are most put off, such as the elderly or families with young children.

Will Councillor Davies agree with me that a more rounded, balanced, less purely financial, greener and more democratic decision is needed? Would he campaign to reverse this pool closure decision and go back to the idea of reviewing the situation once the new leisure centre at Hengrove Park opens?

Furthermore, would he agree with my policy that reviews on the value of locally available facilities like pools should not only be a financial audit but should also be a social and environmental audit, examining the total impact of closure and of alternatives to it?