Plea for help to keep Black Isle pool dream alive

THE fate of a Ross-shire community's bid to secure its own swimming pool now hangs on a new generation keeping the dream alive.

A determined 23-year drive to build a pool serving the fast-growing Black Isle has seen campaigners raise in excess of £60,000 and win planning approval for the scheme.

But a series of disappointments over potential funding packages involving Highland Council and the Big Lottery have prevented the proposal getting off the drawing board.

And now, the chairman of the Black Isle Swimming Pool Foundation (BISPF) has issued an appeal to a younger generation to either pick up the baton or wind up the group and lay the dream to rest.

Roy Sinclair told the Journal that it was with "the greatest regret" that he had to announce that the suriving members of BIPFS are no longer able, due to illness and older age, to continue to oversee the potential development.

He said: " Accordingly, I call upon the folk within the Black Isle and those keen on swimming for health and recreational benefits to grasp the nettle and take this important project forward.

"The remaining members of the BISPF are now faced with two options, one of which is to wind up the Foundation, whose directors and supporters, despite many setbacks, have striven long and hard over many years since the formation of the original, informal, swimming pool group and then BISPF itself, to try to achieve the dream of a swimming pool on the Black Isle.

"The other option is to carry on to try to attract the necessary funding package to enable the pool to become a reality."

One of the two directors of BISPF is due to retire and leave the area.

Mr Sinclair said: "Winding up the BISPF is having to be given serious consideration. The option to continue could still be viable but would require an early recruitment of new and committed people prepared to join the Foundation and become directors to investigate positively and continue the quest to create the pool project.

"The question now arising has to be: Is there a determined and willing group of individuals prepared to take on the challenge and responsibility of keeping the pool project alive?

"It is now over to the folk of the Black Isle to volunteer to carry this important project forward."

Another of the long-standing campaigners, Stuart Edmond, said that a business model of a community run and owned pool, using outside expertise, such as High Life Highland, had been examined.

That would mean setting charges to match expenditure so that there was no need for any subsidy from the cash-strapped council .

He noted too that planning permission is in place and that funds are available for community companies. He said: "We just need the vigour of younger people to build on the work we have done."

Mr Sinclair meanwhile can be contacted by email on roy.sinclair43@gmail.com

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