It has come to my attention that some local councillor's have been receiving death threats and severe abuse from the public about this decision with the Pyramids. I understand that this is a passionate deal of affairs to many in Portsmouth, but I urge you to refrain from resulting in hurling death threats and abuse to local councillor's. Please be civil and courteous when engaging in discussion with councillor's. Thank you.
Here is a response from a local councillor:
"The Pyramids
What follows is (with a couple of minor amends) a post I wrote to an angry resident in my ward who wrote back to me saying she now understands. I hope you guys will too. This job is rarely fun but being made to feel like a pariah in your own town is pretty bloody tough to take.
Hi All, this has been a really difficult decision to make and last night I wrote a response with all the relevant issues addressed in it to a resident in my ward. I am posting it here because although it is long it includes all the parts of the jigsaw, with one exception.
As someone who has worked in the music industry, I can tell you with absolute certainty that a live venue that attracts about a dozen shows every year and needs a £400k investment, is not viable. A lot has changed over the last 10 years and far fewer bands are touring full stop. There just isn't the business available to sustain a venue of that size in this city.
My response to the other issues:
I am always straight with people and I don't plan on changing that now. It doesn't matter how many people write in, object, demonstrate or otherwise, the Council cannot continue to provide a fun pool at the Pyramids.
To refurbish it would cost considerably more than the money we have allocated to change its use, around £4million. To operate it as a pool for the next 10 years, if and it is a big if, it didn't see any further decline in trade after that £4m investment, would cost another £6m. This is money that the Council would be mad to invest in a building which was only designed to last 30 years and which is 30 years old. We are trying to get a last burst of life out of it before it reaches the end of its usable life in around 10 years time (according to the condition survey).
The only other option available to us was to knock it down and that would have taken most of the £1.4m we already had allocated to it. Worth saying that we would need to spend that £1.4m and more behind the scenes on plant and machinery just to keep it open, as a customer, you wouldn't even realise we had spent the money, so the decline in custom would continue.
I agree that it hasn't had the investment is should have done over the years but that is nothing to do with BH Live who have operated it at a loss for 5 years. They have never made a penny out of it. The responsibility for its upkeep rested with PCC and that has involved hundreds of thousands of pounds, just to keep it open. The investment it needed to change its customer facing areas wasn't made available 5 years ago when it should have been. Now it is simply too late.
Swimming has declined nationally by over 24% in recent years, so this is not just about the Pyramids or Portsmouth, it's a national issue.
The Council is facing a £14million black hole in this financial year due to Covid 19.
The Pyramids cannot open in a Covid Safe way and who knows when it will be able to do so again.
These are real challenges in extraordinary times.
The easy option was to leave it closed and do nothing, blaming Covid and letting it rot. The bold decision was to accept that we have reached the end of the road with an unaffordable and outdated facility and that we don't have £20m to knock it down and build a new fun pool facility, which would also lose money.
Why would it lose money? Because fun pools are hugely labour intensive, environmentally poor and heavy on utility costs. They almost all lose money.
These are our realities.
I appreciate your anger but please direct that at the Governments which have taken away over 50% of the controllable spending of local authorities over the last decade and not the Council which is left trying to stretch scant resources across its services when there are always people who don't want to lose the bits that matter to them.
This decision wasn't an easy one but it was inevitable and I am going to make sure that the new Pyramids is something that people can be proud of."