Gavin Callaghan pledges to rebuild Billericay swimming pool with £9million investment

The pool which had around £150,000 in funding removed for maintenance and improvement works is now set to be knocked down and rebuilt with a host of brand new facilities.

Mr Callaghan told the council: "I am pleased to report to council that after the options appraisal results came back to me this week, I am minded to alter the capital investment programme for 2018/19 to show a £9million investment for the rebuilding of Billericay pool.

"Our brand new facility will be equipped with a new six lane pool, a teaching pool, a gym, studio facilities for classes."

Following the announcement, Mr Callaghan took to Twitter regarding the investment:

Tories stunned. They said we’d close Billericay Pool. I always maintained I’d wait for the review so that we could assess how much money was needed. Options appraisal came back and we opted for the £9m investment to give future generations of Billericay the facility they deserve.

— Gavin Callaghan (@CllrCallaghan) February 8, 2018

Mr Callaghan said that in making the decision he considered a previous decision made by the Conservative group in closing Pitsea swimming pool five years earlier.

He said: "In 2012 the Conservatives took the decision to close Pitsea swimming pool.

"I disagreed with that decision and I still do, but now I understand the difficulties involved in making those decisions.

"Last year, £150,000 was earmarked to be removed from funding for the repairs and maintenance to Billericay swimming pool, and realocated the money elsewhere.

"That was a difficult decision.

"The action later led to the Conservatives accusing me of having plans to close the Billericay swimming pool and knock it down.

"Regretfully for once, the Tories were right."

Mr Callaghan added: "In 2012 they closed Pitsea pool, in 2017, they warned Billericay and wanted the people to believe that £150,000 was enough to fix the pool that they had allowed to run down.

"This administration will close Billericay pool and we will knock it down.

"But then we will rebuild it."

Leader of the opposition, Phil Turner, said that in its alternative budget, the price of the radical regeneration of the pool would only cost £2million.

He said: "We put in £2million into Wickford pool, we gave it a fitness centre, and the project was to do the same with Billericay.

"£9million is never going to happen, if it was it would be put in next year's budget, but they have stuck it in 2019/20."

The full report for the plan will go to the council's regeneration and environment committee on March 21.