East Sussex swimming pool at risk of closing as local residents rally to keep it open

The Uckfield Leisure Centre’s future past the summer of 2023 is going to being decided by a public consultation held by the dual owners of the building - Wealden District Council and East Sussex County Council (ESCC).

Following the recent closure to Heathfield's swimming pool last year, residents in Uckfield fear their centre may face the same fate.

Daniel Manvell, an Uckfield Town councillor and petition organiser, said: “It doesn't look positive, knowing Wealden [District Council] doesn't want to renew the contract.

“We know this consolation is going to come out. We are thinking the options they are going to present are not very nice. So we want to start making noise now and start getting it known that we do not want to see us lose the pool and the leisure centre.”

In October 2020, Wealden District Council (WDC) agreed to hand back the dual use of the Leisure Centre in Uckfield to ESCC at the end of it’s current lease.

District councillor Philip Lunn said: “Wealden agreed to hand back the dual use leisure centre at the end of its lease to remove a layer of bureaucracy in the operation of the centre that is predominantly run to serve the school to which it is attached.”

Due to the covid-19 pandemic, WDC extended the lease for a further year, which runs out in July 2023.

Councillor Lunn said: “ESCC continues to look at the options for the site post July 2023, with a public consultation to launch soon. We would encourage the public to take part in this consultation.”

Daniel started a petition to save the pool from closure as he believes the site is a ‘valuable resource to the community’.

He told SussexWorld: “It is likely the school will be the only ones able to use it for the curriculum. It will lose its public access.

“We are very keen to demonstrate how well used it is and how loved it is by lots of people. Everyone has got fond memories of it.

“It's such a valued resource. It’s one of the only public resources we have left. It's the last thing we are clinging to. If it goes, there is nothing for the kids to do.”

HAVE YOU READ THIS?

Family and youth hubs opening across East Sussex

£500k funding boost for road safety in East Sussex

Off-road mobility scooters launched in South Downs National Park

As well as the petition, which has more than 1,000 signatures, Daniel is hosting a rally this Saturday (March 18) at the swimming pool to ‘save the leisure centre’.

Daniel said: “It’s quite astonishing that it has touched such a wide variety of people and sells the point of why it is so important because it brings us all together.

“The petition is an expression of how unhappy we are about the current decision that is being made. It also has an inevitability that it is going to close. So the petition is to get people feeling like they are doing something.

“The more people, we can get along in person to our rally, the more emails we can get sent to the WDC councillors in charge of making the decision, those are the ways we are going to have a lot of impact.”