Haggerston Pool
Statement 3 (July 1999)
1. The Vision
The Haggerston Pool Project aims to create a new
type of healthy living
centre for communities in the area in and around
East Shoreditch. The
original turn of the century building defined
health in terms of cleanliness, providing clean water for a laundry, hot baths
and a swimming pool. Today we have developed from the nineteenth century
concern with cleanliness to the late twentieth century concern for healthy
living.
The new emphasis in health care is on prevention,
diet, active lifestyles,
exercise, leisure, learning, self knowledge and
on a range holistic therapies.
The Haggerston project is seeking to develop a
new concept of a socially and economically productive multi-community centre
which combines leisure, health and learning, and the facilitation of personal
well-being.
2. Background
Its focal point is the Haggerston Pool, an
century old and imposing grade two listed building in Wiston Rd is in urgent
need of renovation. The pool itself is
widely used by people in the locality. It hosts 9 swimming clubs, and serves 15
schools, and provides a neighbourhood facility for the many communities in the
area. There are also fitness facilities and a gym. But the majority of the
building is now unused because of the need for maintenance, and this has
restricted the activities that can be offered as a way of contributing to the
costs of running the pool. Last year
Hackney Council ran a deficit of £400,000, and proposed to close the pool as
part of a budget cutting process. An Action Group of users was formed and
successfully forestalled the closure while an alternative
plan was prepared to provide long term
sustainability for the Pool.
3. Management
The current Community based business proposal has
been generated by a strong
coalition of users, staff and local authority.
The new Centre will be managed by a charitable community enterprise, whose
membership comprises the many community organisations in the area and the users
of the Centre. It will be responsible for the construction and maintenance of
the fabric of the building, and intends to engage an established leisure
company to initially run the centre¹s activities. The groups and individuals currently involved in the project are
listed on the attached sheet.
Through the work of the Pool Action group there now exists an active Haggerston Pool Community Trust (HPCT) which is in position to promote, develop and implement the project of taking on overall responsibility for the pool and the future development of this site.
The trust has emerged from the widespread local support for activities of the Save Haggerston Pool Group and has now been enabled by its delegated Working Group to develop an exciting Vision and an Implementation Plan (summarised here) for its future which is both popular and practical.
Once the implementation plan has been accepted by LBH, the HPCT will put together an Executive Management Team, based upon a partnership with one of the contractor involved in bidding for the outsourcing of LBH Leisure Centres, which will in the first instance specify the baseline functioning, and viability of the pool on the basis of an agreed Business Plan.
This team will provide a skilled, efficient, safe, well motivated management and workforce to enable a smooth transition from LBH’s sole responsibility for this site and services.
This team will be accountable to the HPCT for the day-to day running of the pool and will provide the will also provide services and resources for HPCT in the process of fundraising and project development for implementation of the full vision for this site.
4. The Plan
After extensive community consultation, a plan
has been drawn up to
transform the Pool into a modern centre for
recreation. It has three
elements:
1.
Recreation and exercise.
The renovated pool and associated bathing, gym and fitness areas. These will continue to provide a key facility for people to keep fit, but would be restructured to take account of particular needsand different cultural traditions of communities in the area.
2.
Healthy Living
The centre will provide comprise health care
facilities, complementary medicine facilities for pregnant and post natal
women, parents and children, and a range of new activities from soft-play
areas, to artwork, music, dance and other cultural forms.
3.
Learning and self-knowledge
The centre would encourage the development of
sports skills (for example teaching swimming to all children in the catchment
area under the age of 10, providing swimming for local schools, and facilities
for Hackney College as part of their PE courses).
These three dimensions - Recreation, Health and
Learning - are not seen as separate, with different services in segregated
parts of the building, but joined up with facilities like the pool or the new
restaurant and kitchens being able to relate to each dimension. In this way the
site will function as a modern community centre, providing a new amalgam of
sports, leisure, recreation, health, arts and education.
5. Renovation
The building itself and the strategy for its
renovation also falls into three parts:
(i) the pool, which is still functioning but
needs repairs to the roof and some restoration to prevent water seepage in the
basement.
(ii) the Southern section comprising a flat and
fitness rooms, which like the pool are Stage II protected parts of the
building. These again need repair work
and renovation.
(iii) the North West area, housing the old
laundry and current changing
rooms, which need extensive re-design and
reconstruction.
In the first stage of renovation work the HPCT
will concentrate on the first two sections. The third stage for which the
Architectural Foundation have agreed to provide assistance with the physical
re-design process requires substantial capital funds and will house many of
the new healthy living and learning facilities.
6. Environment and
Finance
In redesigning the Centre, a primary aim is to
ensure that it is environmentally and economically sustainable. New environmental technologies for water
supply, power and heating, water purification, and building materials, will all
be used both to reduce the resource demands of running the building, and
increase its livability but will also considerably reduce running costs.
With social capital already established, HPCT and
its partners is uniquely well placed to obtain the majority of capital funding
for this project in grant form, and is already making initial applications to a wide variety of sources on the basis of
this plan with several positive indicative responses.
The initial capital requirements and a
sustainable reduction in direct funding inputs from LBH will be provided
through its partners in association with subscribing organisations and
individuals. This will achieve incremental
cost reductions and a corresponding revenue growth. HPCT’s relationship to the local community will ensure that the
centre’s services and resources are appropriate, well used and popular.
This plan’s overall economic exit strategy is
that through the Centres’s increasing capitalisation and viability the Local
Authority will be enabled to hand over the overall responsibility for the
running and redevelopment of this site to and for the community, on a healthy
and self-supporting basis.