A NEW leisure centre and ‘wellbeing hub’ in Caerphilly town will be a “destination” for residents of the county borough and beyond when it opens next year, according to a senior council officer.
The local authority is contributing £17 million towards the £38 million project, with the rest coming from external grant funding.
Questions have been raised over the suitability of the new swimming pool – which will be 1.1 metres deep – and its location in the borough.
At a council joint scrutiny committee meeting on Monday July 6, executive director Mark S Williams downplayed concerns the pool would be too shallow for competitive swimming.
Responding to a question from Cllr Martyn James, he said the council had “done a lot of work” on the pool and a uniform depth of 1.1 metres “works better”.
“It enables us to have a full programme of swimming lessons,” Mr Williams explained, adding in an “old fashioned” type of pool “you can’t teach kids to swim in the deep end”.
He said the pool at the new Caerphilly leisure centre will be “certainly deep enough for anybody to swim lengths” and would be “far more effective in terms of getting youngsters to learn to swim and… become comfortable in the water”.
The committee chairman, Cllr Gary Johnston, asked whether a more uniform and shallow pool would also be cheaper to keep warm.
“Absolutely,” replied Mr Williams. “When you have Risca or Cefn Fforest [swimming pools with a] ten-feet deep end, they are very, very expensive to heat”.
Maintenance works in a deeper pool would mean “you have to empty the pool and it’s very expensive to bring it back to temperature – so energy efficiency is a big factor as well”.
Mr Williams told Cllr Sean Morgan the pool would be deep enough for people to perform ‘barrel roll’ turns when swimming lengths.
“I realise it’s not deep enough for them to dive into, therefore they would perhaps have to go elsewhere to one of our other pools to practice diving,” the councillor suggested.
Cllr Morgan, who led the council when the project was approved, also said “lots of people have questioned” the decision to build a new leisure centre in the town, amid claims “everything goes to Caerphilly” rather than elsewhere in the borough.
But he argued the location was appropriate, due to it being near the town’s bus and railway stations.
“Do you think this is best placed to serve as much of the borough as possible, with people being able to access it through public transport?” he asked the officers present.
“Is this value for money for the majority of people in the borough?”
Mr Williams said the leisure centre will be “fantastic” and “a destination that hopefully will attract people right up and down the Rhymney Valley line, and I include north Cardiff in that”.
He added the leisure centre project is “progressing well” ahead of its planned completion date in September 2027.
As well as the swimming pool, the leisure centre will include a splash area with slides, a ‘TAGactive’ arena, health suite, wellness spa, sports hall, squash courts, soft play areas and a cafe.
