There will be no Pool Users meeting in June as the Haggerston Pool Community Trust has been invited to speak at the Shoreditch Neighbourhood Forum at which the mayor, Jules Pipe, will be present. This public meeting is for people to raise issues with Councillors from Haggerston, Hoxton, Queensbridge and De Beauvoir.

We will be giving an update on the recent business planning process and HCD's offer to look at further possibilities. We will also be asking the Council to get rid of the rubbish in the pool left by the squatters to enable it to be used for activities like the Open House program - when listed buildings all over London are opened to the public.

The meeting will be at Fellows Court Community Centre, Corner of Kent St and How St (in the estate opposite Haggerston Pool). 7:30 pm on Thursday June 12th. It would be great if Haggerston Pool supporters were there to ask questions.

Strategic Leisure presented their findings which were that refurbishing the building would cost £10 million. The pool users group thought that there were some options that had not been explored. Shoreditch New Deal expressed their desire to support any group which was working to re-open the pool. Adam Hart from Hackney Co-operative Developments offered to look at these unexplored options in conjunction with architects Hawkins Brown, and this was sanctioned by the user group. Rhys Lewis from Hackney Council assured the meeting that there was no intention to put the pool on the Council disposals list.

The minutes are attached - any problems opening please let me know if you want a copy and I'll post.

This week's Time Out (May 14th) carries a 2 page article about Haggerston Pool and the general run-down of London's swimming pools. Apart from discussing the difficulties faced by the campaign it has a couple of great pictures by Kate Goodrich, a local photographer based at Hot House in Richmond Road.

As a result of the article in Time Out with the pictures of the inside of the Haggerston Pool and London Fields Lido, we have been approached by 3 photographers, 1 Japanese design magazine, 1 person photographing swimwear, 2 art-schools, 2 artists and Children's BBC all interested in projects in Haggerston pool.

Hackney Council's Buildings at Risk Officer has written again to the Community and Environment Department in the Council asking for the rubbish in Haggerston Pool building to be removed as it is now rotting and so causing damage and encouraging infestation.

BBC2 enquired about holding the launch of their new Restoration program in Haggerston Baths (see minutes of meeting) and were offering to pay for some repairs and rubbish clearing. The Council Communications department have said no to this on health and safety grounds, even though the Council has an on-going agreement with the London Film Commission for the pool building to be used for filming and pop videos.

The Restoration program will feature listed buildings from around Britain - including the beautiful Victoria Baths in Manchester (www.victoriabaths.org.uk) who's campaign have visited Haggerston Pool Users group. The public are then asked to vote for the building they would like to receive the funding - Pop Idol style.