Madam, Re Halo Leisure and Ross Swimming Club. Before

we moved to Herefordshire we lived in a large town in

Sussex and for over 20 years I was a swimming Aquafit/

keep fit instructor at the large swimming complex there,

so I do know a bit about the relationship between local

swimming clubs and public pools.

The swimming club, where I taught caused all sorts

of problems with the public with their continued demands

for more pool time, but the council listened eventually to

the public.

It was a large pool with a teaching pool, but the club

ended up with less time than Ross Swimming Club have at

our pool in Ross. Local swimming clubs really do have an

overrated opinion of themselves and to say that the

children of Ross will miss out if they lose any of this pool-

time is utter rubbish. Halo Leisure and Herefordshire

Education provide perfectly adequate swimming lessons

for children with qualified instructors, which I don't think

always applies to most swimming clubs. Surely they are

about coaching youngsters for competitions?

At the moment they have all the prime time for their

use including Monday, Thursday and Friday evenings. It is

so nice when the schools are on holiday as the club closes

too and there is so much more public swimming time.

There are so many people who can't use the pool facilities

during the day and would appreciate more public

swimming in the evenings, especially on Fridays when the

pool is closed to the public from 4pm onwards. This is

also the opinion of many other regular swimmers like

myself, who I have spoken to.

I hope all other devoted swimmers will support and

agree with me.

Joy Kinsman, Weston-under-Penyard