Midhurst residents views sought as council explores plans for a lido

The town council agreed on last night (Monday, September 21) that a working party would be set up consisting of residents and councillors as the latter explore plans for the outdoor swimming pool further.

Councillor Gordon McAra provided an update to the council on the proposed lido.

In March this year, the town council described the lido plans as an ambitious project which may cost about £2 million. Consultation with the town’s residents received an ‘overwhelming’ response with 1,283 responses of which 90 per cent were in favour of the idea.

Speaking to fellow councillors, Mr McAra, who made the recommendation, offered two options for the council’s consideration: “One is to accept that it’s a great project and something that we can work on but it’s realistically beyond the capacity of the town council to deliver it," he said.

“The second option really is to take the project further, there’s no commitment involved in this, it’s simply a much more rigid and more detailed proposal by putting together a working party and look at the project in great depth. Despite what we might think there are actually other locations in the town.

“My recommendation is that we try to get together a working group of not just town councillors who are interested and want to move this forward.

“People in the town and surrounding areas with requisite knowledge and skills can bring something to the table so in a periood of time we can look at reporting back to the town council and to the wider town about what their findings are.”

Cllr Jeanette Sutton agreed and added: “I think we can’t dismiss it before we have looked at how much it would cost the town because they like the idea of it but if they know that it’s going to cost them a huge amount of money they may not like the idea of it and, as you say, we don’t know, nobody knows until we look at the actual figures how efficient the solar panels and all the rest of it are, how many staff we actually need.”

Chairman Carol Lintott said: “I think that we should scope it out, explore our other locations if we can and get some solid financials behind it so that the public know, if we are to go ahead with such a plan, that there is a cost involved and how that cost will drill down to, potentially, their council tax bills.

“Clearly we would go for grant funding as well but there may be an impact on council tax bills and people need to be aware of that.”

Share your views by emailing [email protected] or find out more by visiting midhurstlido.co.uk