OPEN LETTER FROM THE BROOMHILL POOL TRUST
BROOMHILL POOL: LAST CHANCE TO SAVE ONE OF BRITAIN’S FINEST LIDOS.
To: David Ellesmere (Leader, Ipswich Borough Council).
To: Anthony Cawley (CEO, Fusion Lifestyle).
To: Robyn Llewellyn (Director, National Lottery Heritage Fund).
To: Tom Hunt (MP Ipswich).
To: Daniel Poulter (MP Central Suffolk & North Ipswich).
The Levelling Up Awards, outcomes and spread are bewildering. With 75% funding already committed, an outstanding community asset with wide public and cross-party support, Broomhill’s Levelling Up Fund bid should have ticked every box. Yet, Cambridgeshire received £50m, Norfolk £40m, North Essex £40m (the new City of Colchester gained £20m), Suffolk £0 and Ipswich £0.
We appreciate the tremendous efforts and good intentions of Ipswich Borough Council and our MPs. So once the political storm has settled, the Broomhill Pool Trust is appealing to the three stakeholders to consider the many positives of the scheme and what will be lost if it fails.
We would remind you of what is at stake for Ipswich.
The campaign and project to save Broomhill Pool has enjoyed rare cross party-political support within the Borough. This was a celebrated and community-based campaign with wide public support. It had won backing and investment from a top not for profit operator and from the NLHF.
- Broomhill Pool was all set to be restored and works began April 2020, sadly just as Covid hit. Fusion Lifestyle (the operator & project lead) was forced to furlough 3000 staff and mothball 140 facilities for nearly 2 years. The entire leisure sector was rocked. Post-Covid and Ukraine conflict, project capital construction & utility costs spiked significantly. The goalposts had moved.
- However, the scheme has £7m pledged. It possibly only needs another £1.5-2.0m to bridge the inflationary gap to get it over the line.
- There is £3.4m National Lottery Heritage Funding hanging in the balance. This is the first major NLHF award for NW Ipswich. The £3.4m NLHF stage 2 pass represents a substantial inward investment and stimulus for all Ipswich. It would be unforgivable for the people of Ipswich to lose such a massive and hard-won inward investment.
- The £5.5m guaranteed by Fusion and the NLHF (+ £1.5m commitment from IBC) represents a SIGNIFICANT return for IBC taxpayers and in an area of town that has had very little investment.
- The 2009 “All Options Appraisal” for Broomhill confirmed that this is the best outcome for taxpayers and the people of Ipswich.
- There is a substantial cost and loss to do nothing. The pool is grade II listed and built in park land (since 1925). It will be expensive for taxpayers to convert the building for recreational use or to demolish the pool. There is still a continuous liability to secure and upkeep the building.
- It now seems unlikely that the borough will get funding/secure income in the immediate term to fund a new pool at Portman Road. The Portman Road scheme is wonderful but the 25m pool is a direct replacement for Crown Pools, it does not add any additional swimming space. In comparison Broomhill Pool will double Ipswich’s public water swimming space for a fraction of the cost of the Portman Road scheme, and it can be completed and available in just 18 months!
- Ipswich has received around £90m in national lottery investment since the lottery began. Our similar sized neighbour, Norwich, has received £210m with all the extra match funding and benefits that it brings. Ipswich needs positive outcomes, and this is a project that is tantalisingly close to fruition. If the whole scheme fails now – at such a late stage – due to a gap in capital funding, it will represent a lost opportunity of a monumental scale. What sort of message will it send about Ipswich as a regional centre, our ability to deliver core schemes, and the ambition that our leaders collectively have for it?
- Struggling Northwest Ipswich (in CSNI constituency) has secured barely £3m (from all lottery funds) in 20 years. NW Ipswich is an area with two major high schools, two significant pockets of deprivation, and is targeted for an expansion of housing (Northern Fringe). Broomhill Pool is one of just a few major assets in NW Ipswich. This area needs and deserves inward investment and community facilities.
- Broomhill Pool will offer year-round facilities; a fitness suite, a heritage suite, café, and restored lido, terraces, and grandstand, with heated water and a planned restoration to the Wicksteed Diving stage.
- A restored Broomhill Pool will bring additional employment opportunities. It will help promote Ipswich as a destination. It will bring in extra passing trade for local shops and services. It will bring a major construction project that will possibly benefit the local economy, local construction companies and workers.
- A restored Broomhill Pool will benefit ALL the people of Ipswich but especially the young to an enormous degree offering unparalleled water facilities for the next 50 years. Approx. 30 pools have closed in Ipswich in the last 30 years (mostly Suffolk County Council operated school pools). Broomhill Pool offers a large swimming and social space for all our youth and accessibility for school swimming lessons.
- Art Deco style Broomhill Pool is unique. It is also one of our town’s most iconic and loved buildings and it can offer a practical heritage experience.
- Broomhill Pool is a member of the Historic Pools of Britain and is recognised as one of the finest lidos in the United Kingdom. A successful scheme would put Ipswich on the map for all the right reasons.
- Janet Smith wrote, in her definitive book “Liquid Assets”, “Broomhill may lack the national profile accorded to Saltdean, Tinside or Penzance, but it is arguably their equal in architectural significance”.
The Broomhill Pool Trust has worked tirelessly since 2003. We have secured political support, attracted in a respected not-for-profit operator, and brought together core funders to secure £7m funding. Ipswich Borough Council and Fusion Lifestyle have both invested considerable monies and effort to get the scheme almost there. However, this may well be the last chance to save one of Britain’s finest lidos.
PLEASE let’s find a way to bridge the gap and complete the task to restore & reopen Broomhill, and work together to make a great success of it!
Mark Ling & Michael Read MBE.
Chairman & President, for and on behalf of the Broomhill Pool Trust.
VISIT US ONLINE:
Broomhill Pool Trust 
Yes it’s a disgrace no levelling up cash came Ipswich way. So shortsighted as broomhill pool would b a massive asset to the town both financially and financially.
Why can the pool reopening not go ahead, scaling back the fitness suite and heritage suite? Those things could be added at a later date!
That’s what I was thinking … scale back the plans for the time being?!
Dear SW (and also in relation to Emily’s comment), thanks for your interest in Broomhill Pool and your kind message. Your comments are valid.
Please rest assured, that since 2015 and during the planning stages of Broomhill Pool’s restoration – and throughout and after lock-downs – Fusion Lifestyle has explored numerous models and options for the final scheme. They continue to work with the project team (architects and quantity surveyors, construction experts, etc), and have looked a various options to sequence the restoration, delay to later, or scale back parts of the restoration. This also has to meet the criteria of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Ipswich Borough’s conditions of lease.
They also have to balance the final offer of the site along with projected cost and business plans.
Fusion Lifestyle is the largest operator of heritage pools in Britain. They operate 6 lidos, 40 indoor pools and 80+ fitness ventres and sports halls. They have a very good understanding of what services are presently growing post-covid, or have been reduced.
The Broomhill Pool Trust has courted Fusion Lifestyle since 2008, because we belive they are uniquely and expertly placed to deliver the Broomhill restoration properly, and make a success of it.
Dear Emily, thanks for your interest in Broomhill Pool and your kind message. Your comments are valid.
Please rest assured, that since 2015 and during the planning stages of Broomhill Pool’s restoration – and throughout and after lock-downs – Fusion Lifestyle has explored numerous models and options for the final scheme. They continue to work with the project team (architects and quantity surveyors, construction experts, etc), and have looked a various options to sequence the restoration, delay to later, or scale back parts of the restoration. This also has to meet the criteria of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Ipswich Borough’s conditions of lease.
They also have to balance the final offer of the site along with projected cost and business plans.
Fusion Lifestyle is the largest operator of heritage pools in Britain. They operate 6 lidos, 40 indoor pools and 80+ fitness ventres and sports halls. They have a very good understanding of what services are presently growing post-covid, or have been reduced.
The Broomhill Pool Trust has courted Fusion Lifestyle since 2008, because we belive they are uniquely and expertly placed to deliver the Broomhill restoration properly, and make a success of it.
A cogent, brilliantly argued and absolutely compelling case for spending wh
Woulkd be a massive addition to the town. Anyone know a generous millionaire. Ed Sheeran??? qonder if heor his family used it previously. ??