Kenilworth outdoor pool: councillors officially advised to delay tonight's crunch vote on closure

Decision makers at Warwick District Council have been officially advised to delay tonight's crunch vote on whether to close Kenilworth's outdoor pool.
A crunch vote on the outdoor pool's future will be held tonightA crunch vote on the outdoor pool's future will be held tonight
A crunch vote on the outdoor pool's future will be held tonight

The council recently revealed its plans to replace Kenilworth's outdoor pool with an indoor training pool, which has been criticised by campaigners from 'Restore Kenilworth Lido' and other residents.

The group hopes to persuade the council to replace the outdoor pool with a larger 25m lido, which it says will attract more tourists into Kenilworth.

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The council's executive is set to make a final decision on the plans to close the pool at 6pm this evening in Leamington Town Hall.

But at the council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting yesterday (Tuesday), which advises the executive on what decisions it should make, a motion put forward by Cllr Alan Boad (Lib Dem, Crown) asking the executive to consider deferring its decision was passed by five votes to four.

This means the executive will have to take a vote on Cllr Boad's proposal at tonight's meeting.

Residents who attended a public meeting on Saturday January 5 at the Kenilworth Centre also called on the executive to delay its decision so a more comprehensive consultation on the lido plans could be undertaken.

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Although a consultation on the plans was already held in November, it did not directly ask people if they supported the construction of a larger lido, although 25 per cent of respondents still expressed their support of a new lido.

Instead, respondents were asked whether they supported the outdoor pool as it is or the indoor pool. 41 per cent of respondents supported the outdoor pool, while 32 per cent supported the new indoor pool. The rest had no preference.