Concerns at lack of community swimming provision at Dundee secondary schools over the holidays
Dundee City Councillor for Broughty Ferry, Cllr Craig Duncan, has today highlighted concerns about the lack of public swimming availability in Grove Academy over the school summer holidays.
Councillor Duncan said:
“I have been contacted by local parents who expressed disappointment that there is a lack of swimming access locally at Grove Academy over the school summer holidays. I know from my Liberal Democrat group colleagues that this issue is not confined to Broughty Ferry.For example, in the West End, Councillors Michael Crichton and Fraser Macpherson have had similar issues raised about the swimming facilities at Harris Academy and Strathmartine Ward Councillor Daniel Coleman has exactly the same issue in his area where both Baldragon Academy and St Paul’s RC Academy are situated.”
Councillor Duncan raised the issue with Leisure and Culture Dundee and LACD’s Interim Head of Development for Leisure and Sport advised as follows :
“LACD delivered additional swimming opportunities over the school holiday periods whilst Olympia was closed, but this was only achievable by utilising the spare capacity within the staffing resource at Olympia to relocate lifeguards to school pools.”
“Unfortunately these additional sessions over the school holidays, on top of the regular evening and weekend sessions at Grove, St Paul's and Harris are not possible, mainly due to a lack of available staff. Even with support from Olympia whilst it was closed, we were only ever able to open one school pool at a time. With Olympia open full capacity over the holidays, all staffing resources are prioritised to ensure that this can be suitably staffed over this period of increased demand. This makes it very difficult to put on additional sessions elsewhere.”
“In relation to demand for sessions over the school holidays, with Olympia and Lochee open, and kids having access to free bus travel, we feel that opportunities to swim in Dundee are available.”
Cllr Duncan added:
“All our secondary schools currently have swimming pools with the exception of Morgan Academy. Bizarrely the SNP council administration ignored Liberal Democrat councillor calls to provide swimming facilities at the new East End Community Campus that will replace Craigie High School and Braeview Academy.Nonetheless, there is a pretty good network of community swimming pools built at a multi-million-pound cost and it is ridiculous that they sit empty and unused for most of the time over the summer, when children are looking for leisure pursuits in their own local area.”
“There really needs to be a full review of what Leisure and Culture Dundee has capacity to deliver. We have recently seen key Dundee attractions like Broughty Castle Museum, Mills Observatory and Caird Park Golf Course all run by LACD under threat of closure by the SNP and we see real underuse of community facilities. It is simply not good enough and shows a lack of ambition by the SNP for Dundee.”
“The Liberal Democrat Group is anxious to see a comprehensive review of Leisure and Culture Dundee to see how it can be better supported to provide more for the people of Dundee. Leaving swimming pools that cost a fortune to build empty over the summer holidays is little short of an unforgivable waste of public resources.”
(Caption: Councillor Craig Duncan standing outside Grove Academy and the entrance to the swimming facilities)