Of the 4 public swimming facilities in Oxford that reopened after the July lockdown:

• The Ferry pools closed on 31st July, to remove asbestos from the plant room. The closure was initially described as being "for several weeks", and is currently due to reopen on an as yet unspecified date in “mid-November”.
• The Hinksey outdoor pool closed at the end of the season on 1st September.
• The Leys pools are scheduled to close on 8th November as part of a £10.9m project to reduce the carbon emissions from public leisure centres.
• The Barton pool remains open.

This leaves a single 5-lane pool as the only public swimming facility open in Oxford, a city of 150,000 residents, for an unspecified period of time from 8th November 2021 onwards.

While we are sympathetic to emergency work required at the Ferry pool, and are enthusiastic about the upgrades planned for the Leys, it seems both unnecessary and shortsighted to start the work at the Leys pool before the Ferry pool is operational again.

We call on Council Leader Susan Brown, Cllr Mary Clarkson (responsible for leisure), and Fusion Leisure to keep the Leys pools open until the work at the Ferry facility is complete.

We also call for a review of the decision making process that has left the city of Oxford with a completely inadequate, yet seemingly avoidable, provision of public swimming facilities planned from 8th November 2021.