Gaz, great questions (yes, changing the pool site to housing will require a change of use and this is by no means a given, yes as far as I understand it Willow Way is not a defined Town Centre site, yes Willow Way complicates things but it also has the potential to add funding too, yes business use will have less value but realistically how much value do you think you can get out of large scale developer housing at the moment?)

Aswaspooluser - thanks

What seems really obvious is that we all want a pool as soon as possible but it isn't actually the policies that are holding this up it is the lack of joined up thinking and 'hare before tortoise' approach that has been taken again and again. There were always planning issues to do with the pool way before Louise House was listed (whatever you do with it materially affects the setting of a Listed Building - the Library - for a start) but these were always put off into the future and never dealt with or acknowledged up front. What is happening now is some of these are being realised as part of the process rather than in spite of it. Yes, it is painful and annoying but when we get the right solution on the table that ticks all the boxes it should mean that delays to the programme once started are minimised and there should be much less need for factions to develop and large scale objections to Planning Applications. I don't believe with the information and justification we have been given to date that we should be forced to accept an option that we don't really want simply because we are told that it is the only way to get a pool.

However, we still have no indication yet that The Council are going to offer the community a real and fair set of options. We need to keep pushing for this and votes on the petition to say we want a pool on the pools site NOW are an important part of this. I know not everyone wants to keep the frontage but if we can still get the pool we want, if it doesn't add to the cost and it makes planning easier does it really matter if it is retained to those that want to lose it?

I know I will be told I am being unrepresentative by a few on SE23.com but literally everyone I speak to about this basically wants the same thing......but for 'political' reasons it may not be allowed to happen. Does that seem fair or reasonable?