COMMENT: Labour Left High and Dry over Swimming

1.40.29pm GMT Fri 20th Nov 2009

The shock news that Streatham Pool has been forced to close, exposes for all to see that Lambeth Labour has been treading water over its Leisure Centre plans for some time.

Clearly the unwelcome news has put them in a bit of a flap as the news has been ruthlessly suppressed. The first leak of trouble ahead suggested a small area of the pool had been cordoned-off after a piece of decorative plasterwork had become detached. Then came news that perhaps the ceiling needed further investigation and, finally and rather more seriously, that the roof trusses had become detached.

Labour have closed Streatham swimming pool

Now this popular pool will be closed for a three-week period just so a structural survey can determine the safety of the roof - which we understand is also made of asbestos. The worry is that any expensive structural refurbishment unearthed by the survey will not be sanctioned by the Council, given that the pool has question marks about its long-term viability.

This is tied-in to crisis talks currently under way between Labour politicians and Tesco, owners of the neighbouring Streatham Ice Rink. Plans were originally agreed for a replacement Leisure Centre between the Council and Tesco six years ago, and had the former Labour Mayor of London not delayed its approval by eighteen months and had the current Labour Lambeth administration not dithered and delayed, it would probably have been built by now.

Elsewhere in the borough the leisure picture is hardly any less bleak. Labour promised the electorate in 2006 that Clapham Swimming Pool would not close. Then they got into bed with a developer who wanted to maximise the Clapham High Road former Mary Seacole House Council Office site meaning that the swimming pool in Clapham Manor Street would have to be demolished after all.

Currently that whole development is going nowhere fast, which is more than can be said of the Swimming Pool itself which a Council Building Condition report recently described as precarious and likely to close long before a new building becomes available.

Meanwhile the Brixton Recreation Centre is set for partial closure over the Christmas and New Year period for essential repairs while the brand new school building in Stockwell, which used to have a swimming pool, now doesn't.

Labour's grandiose plans have subsided like a soufflé and its huge but hopeless regeneration department - which is one of the few to actually outdo Labour's Spin Department - is looking like an increasingly expensive and unproductive luxury in these financially straitened times.

The real tragedy in all this is that as we approach the Olympics, Labour's sports and leisure legacy in Lambeth is now looking distinctly threadbare.