Open Letter to the Residents of Kenilworth and Warwick District regarding Abbey Fields Leisure Centre, from Councillors Aizlewood, Cron, Hales and Williams.

We fully support the pressing need for a new swimming pool in Kenilworth.

However, we write to express our disappointment that a proposal will come before Warwick District Council on Thursday 15 November 2023, requesting a sizeable uplift in budget to fund a new swimming pool in Abbey Fields, in the absence of proper consideration of other options.

The main argument for continuing with the current proposal appears to be that work can be completed sooner than if we were to pause.

Recognising it may cause a small delay, our view is that this it is necessary now to pause and to consider other options, including alternative sites.

We strongly believe this for the following reasons:

1. The heritage ruins unexpectedly found in Abbey Fields add significant cost to the current proposal.

A new foundation design requires piling and the creation of a floating concrete slab. These costs are estimated in region of £8 million, way in excess of the current budget.

In the current proposal, the ruins will lie under the pool's concrete slab, inaccessible to the people of Kenilworth or the wider District. It seems unreasonable to ask the taxpayers of Warwick District to meet this cost, for no apparent benefit.

More time is required to consider how these important ruins can add benefit to Abbey Fields and to negotiate with Historic England an approach which is more sensible than simply encasing our heritage assets in concrete.

2. Kenilworth has grown significantly since the current pool proposal was planned and Kenilworth will continue to grow in the future.

A casual glance at a map of Kenilworth shows that Abbey Fields is not the centre of the town.

We should ensure our swimming facilities are well located to meet our current and future needs.

Other possible sites, such as Leyes Lane and Castle Farm, are much closer to where most residents live, and where new houses will be built in the future.

Abbey Fields is distanced from the residential centre of Kenilworth. And for residents of the wider District, Abbey Fields is poorly served in respect of car parking and public transport.

3. Sadly, the proposed pool will not be as environmentally friendly as it should be.

In 2019, four years after the original inception of this project, Warwick District Council declared a Climate Emergency and set a target to be "Net Zero Carbon" by 2025.

The council was right to do so. But site constraints at Abbey Fields make it incredibly difficult to build a swimming pool which comes anywhere near today's standards for carbon efficiency. This pool will be relatively expensive to run.

Further, the council has not yet assessed the carbon impact of building the new pool, even before the additional pilings which are now required. We are being asked to approve significant extra funds for a pool which will be both expensive to run and environmentally unfriendly.

And in the future, when it needs replacing, options will be constrained by the cost of removing the piling and concrete laying over the heritage assets.

Given this changed context, common sense says that we need to think again.

Our view is that there has not been proper consideration of these changed circumstances, nor a review of alternative options for the pool.

We think that the council should agree to do this now, quickly, at a high level.

Rather than agreeing to extra funds on 15 November 2023, as district councillors for Kenilworth we will be formally asking all councillors to agree to pause the project to allow time for a fast-track strategic options appraisal, so we can all be assured we are spending the council's precious funds wisely.

Yours sincerely

Councillor Kyn Aizlewood Member for Kenilworth Abbey & Arden

Councillor Lara Cron Member for Kenilworth Park Hill

Councillor Richard Hales Member for Kenilworth Abbey & Arden

Councillor Lowell Williams Member for Kenilworth Park Hill