5:30pm Tuesday 9th March 2010
By Carl Brown
A DEAL has been struck to re-open the Waltham Forest’s best training pool, after it was threatened with permanent closure.
Private firm Active Leisure Management (ALM) has stepped in to save the aging facility at Waltham Forest College, in Forest Road, Walthamstow.
A broken water filter, which threatened to scupper the deal, has now been repaired and the pool was swimmers returned on Monday.
A limited number of sessions for local groups will be held at the pool, with the possibility that opening hours may be increased at a later date.
ALM will split running costs with Tritons swimming club and Friends of the Pool (FOTP), which fought to keep the facility open.
Swimmers, including Olympic hopefuls from the borough, say the pool is the best training facility of its kind in the borough as it offers unrestricted lane swimming.
FOTP chairman, Miles Parker, said: “We are delighted. “We would like to thank the college for their support and ALM for their patience and forbearance, without it we would not have pulled off this minor miracle.”
John Allan, ALM director, said: “I've still got my fingers crossed that nothing will go wrong with the old plant machinery.
“But it has been great the way everybody has worked together.”
Mr Allan said the next stage is to apply for a grant to heat the pool with solar energy, in order to secure the use of the pool in the longer term.
College bosses refused to divert cash from teaching in 2009, after an expected cash injection to redevelop the site failed to materialise.
The pool was originally earmarked for closure in 2007 before Waltham Forest Council stepped in to broker a two-year deal with its sports centre operator, Greenwich Leisure Ltd.
For more information visit collegepoolfriends.co.uk
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