MADAM, The dispute between the Ross Swimming Club and Halo, managers of the Leisure Centre, has now come down to one key issue—the bullying tactics adopted by Halo to try and deny local parents freedom of choice.

During the course of discussions with Halo officials over their proposal to ban the swimming club from giving lessons, l was amazed to find that Halo openly admitted that the reason for the ban was that it simply wanted to wipe out competition from the swimming club so that it would become the only suppliers of swimming lessons at the pool.

It apparently believes that having total control will enable it to provide a better service. Economic experts know that is faulty thinking. History shows that lack of competition eventually leads to complacency, inefficiency and poorer service. That is why we have a Restrictive Practices Act and a Monopolies Commission.

Nearer to home the most important point for Ross is that the local community, who eventually foot the bills, will be the ones to suffer immediately from lack of choice. They will no longer be free to choose to pay for competitive swimming lessons from a long established club, even though Halo do not even offer the special lessons needed for successful competitive swimming. That seems barking mad at a time when Britain is gearing up to encourage the improvement of competitive sports, like swimming, prior to the 20l2 Olympics.

Halo enjoy an incestuous relationship with Herefordshire Council, owners of the Leisure Centre. It was formed when the Council decided to privatise its sports and leisure department. To help ensure the redeployment of its staff, the Council decided to give Halo the rich prize of 25 year exclusive management contracts for all the publicly owned leisure centres in Herefordshire.

Unfortunately Halo is abusing that privileged position by seeking to eliminate any competition throughout the county. It forgets that it has a wider duty to ratepayers. As usual Ross has already drawn the short straw with the smallest public swimming pool in the county. Now Halo threatens to make the situation worse by undermining the Swimming Club—one of the oldest and most successful private sports clubs in Ross.

I plan to take this matter up with elected representatives on the Herefordshire Council, as well as local political parties. A very important matter of principle is at stake—freedom of choice for the much abused ratepayers. Public support for this campaign aimed at providing parents with the right to choose would be much appreciated.

Cllr John Edwards, chairman of the Ross Sports & Leisure Federation