Councillor tables rescue package for baths

4:36pm Tuesday 19th February 2008

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Kirkham council representative, Councillor Simon Renwick, has called for a Kirkham Bath Rescue meeting on Thursday.

Key councillors and members of staff at Fylde Borough Council have been invited to attend the gathering at 4pm.

It follows a meeting last week when hundreds of people packed into Kirkham community centre to discuss the fate of the town's public swimming pool.

It is one of a number of leisure facilities under threat in the Fylde as the council faces a £600,000 reduction in government funding.

The meeting, organised by Friends of Kirkham Baths, was followed by a meeting last Friday, at St Annes Town Hall, where the leisure cuts were put to the council's cabinet.

At the meeting Coun Renwick spoke out against the proposals to close the public pool stating, "residents expected their tax to be spent on subsidising the baths".

He later voted against his cabinet colleagues and vowed to come up with an appropriate rescue package that will add no more to the council's budget and will not cut back major services.

Coun Renwick said: "I've invited members of staff and other councillors to this meeting to come up with some early work on a package that will rescue Kirkham Baths.

"I'm expecting the meeting to be hard work, with no stone left unturned.

"I feel that any package will be robust and will be accepted by the leader to go into the Conservative Budget, this is the way we need to play this.

"But I repeat my vow that I'll work day and night for local rural Fylde residents to try and keep this baths open."