YOUNG swimmers have been given more practice time at a public pool in the wake of an impending eviction from their usual base.
The Borough of Harrow Swimming Club is one of the group’s affected by John Lyon School’s decision to shut its sports centre in Middle Road, Harrow on the Hill, to outside organisations.
The club already has a reserved weekday morning slot at Harrow Leisure Centre in Christchurch Avenue, Wealdstone. Following the news it will not be able to use John Lyon’s sports centre from June 30, Harrow Council has agreed to extend each period by an hour each morning and has given the club a 3pm to 5pm booking for half of the pool, on Sundays, until August 4.
Zak Andrawos, club treasurer, said: “We are really very grateful to the council as it has done a lot to help us overcome some of our immediate issues.
“We still face many uncertainties and unknowns on how we will operate in the longer term but the council has agreed to meet us in early July to discuss how this will work in the new outsourced scenario.
“Even with the temporary solution, our situation is not ideal – we have 11 squads, who need to train between four and 18 hours a week and we need to fit in these hours in appropriately equipped facilities.”
Harrow Leisure Centre’s pool is 33m long, which is not a competitive race distance, and it does not have starting blocks, so the club has had to hire St Margaret’s School, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to provide somewhere suitable for the elite squad to train, at a higher cost than at John Lyon Sports Centre.
Mr Andrawos added: “For the borough to truly support competitive swimming, we not only need more hours in the pool but also need better facilities.”
Councillor William Stoodley (Independent Labour), the council’s portfolio holder for planning and regeneration, said: “Overall, it is a happy ending to the matter where no party has lost out.”
John Lyon School decided to restrict use of its sports centre to pupils after the council received complaints about parking and advised the school it was infringing its planning conditions by opening up the complex to external parties.
Mr Stoodley said: “We have listened to residents’ concerns about increased levels of traffic and parking, and the breach of a planning agreement, and have worked with the groups involved to achieve a solution.
“Under this deal, the members of the swim club can still train for competitive events and keep fit and healthy right here in Harrow, and the residents of Harrow on the Hill will no longer have to put up with the disruption that the increased levels of traffic on Middle Road has brought.”
