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Council agrees to splash out on multi-million pound pool
AFTER 50 years of campaigning in Market Rasen, councillors at West Lindsey finally took the plunge and gave the go-ahead for a swimming pool with a 30 station fitness suite, exercise/dance studio and youth provision at De Aston Fields.
The council committed 4.1 million to the project, even though it would cost almost 4.8 million at December’s estimated figures.
The importance of the vote was encapsulated by Caistor’s Independent councillor, Alan Caine, who said: “”If we don’t vote for it tonight, it’s dead in the water.”
In the event, after what was at times a bad-tempered debate with political points being made on both sides, councillors emphatically voted for the scheme, with only a handful of councillors - all Conservative - voting against or abstaining.
The Liberal Democrat leader of the council, Coun Reg Shore, said the scheme had been ‘kicked around in council like a football for 35 years’.
“The people of Market Rasen have suffered years of delay and childish intrigue which must end tonight,” he said. “We have the money to deliver the project and, if we don’t do it now, we never will. Let’s replace politics with common sense.”
Market Rasen’s Coun Adam Duguid (Conservative), said he reiterated his ‘strong support for the pool’.
“There is both a business case and a popular case for it,” he said. “It has been a story of missed opportunities in which not everything has been managed perfectly and costs have risen.
“However, we are where we are. It has been promised to the town for many years and it’s time we delivered on the promises.”
An enthusiastic band of supporters from the town, clapped all those who supported the project.
Coun Gary Fenwick of Middle Rasen said that, in 1999, West Lindsey had sold its stock of council houses and wanted to have a legacy from that.
“It sickens me that politics since then have got in the way of getting what we wanted. We need to give it the green light and go ahead at full steam - not because it’s politic but because it’s right,” he said.
Speaking after the debate, Coun David Kitchen, who chairs the Pool Project Board, said he expected tenders to be obtained in the next three to six months and for contracts to be in place by the end of the year.
This would pave the way for building to get underway in 2009.
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Weather for Market Rasen
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
