The latest on the swimming pool

You may have thought it has all gone a bit quiet on the swimming pool front lately, but it has been a hive of activity behind the scenes. Put Saturday July 27 in your diary for an event which will launch what we do next. More details below, but first some history.

Back in November 2022, when Freedom Leisure closed the pool due to high energy costs, the then mayor, Cllr Andi Rivett, called a public meeting at the centre, at which hundreds turned out to voice their concern at the loss of this vital community asset. There and then people came forward offering to help.

A meeting was held with interested parties at the Town Hall and a nucleus was formed to create a community charity to run the centre. Two project managers were employed (Dan Lynn and Rebekah Gilbert), Barry Nealon became chair of trustees, and they were joined by two others on legals and financials.

Then began the long and slow, and sometimes frustrating, task of taking this forward. First of all we had to create a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation), basically a not-for-profit business with charitable status, and registered it with the Charity Commission, which took about eight months. We then began the very complicated legal transition from East Sussex County Council (ESCC) – the freeholder of the site, and Rother District Council (RDC) – the lease-holder of the site, and discussions with Freedom Leisure (FL) the current operators and Rye College (RC) who have a joint use agreement on the site – so four stakeholders and four different sets of leases and licences that took some unpicking, especially given that the CIO was looking to take over before the expiry of the existing leases. Whist there have been some hair-pulling moments along the way, we very much hope that in July we will get the final clearance from ESCC that Rye Town Council can take on a new 20-year lease, and in September, with town councillors’ permission, appoint the CIO as operators.

We then needed funding for dilapidations – as you can imagine a pool and sports centre takes some wear and tear over the years and much of the plant and machinery needed to run it was coming to the end of its lifespan. The centre was exceedingly lucky to get £650,000 in Levelling Up money from the government for this, thanks to an excellent application by RDC officers and support from MP Sally-Ann Hart. This is currently being put into a project management plan and should be spent over the next six months. Visitors to the centre probably won’t see any of this, but will benefit from new ventilation, pipes and ducts, and whizzy things that we truly don’t understand, but make it all happen behind the public facade!

We also want to make it a greener, and more efficient centre, so again, thanks to an excellent bid by RDC officers, the centre gained £140,000 from Sport England to fit photovoltaic cells to the roof. Again, this should be delivered by the end of the year. We hope in time we can bid for more green initiatives such as air-source heat pumps, but Rome wasn’t built in a day!

There will of course be things like decorating and updating some of the tired interior and we are garnering community support to help us with that.

This leaves us with two major phases before we hope to start on January 1 2025. The first is the start-up phase: recruitment, TUPE, staffing, and training; legals, licences, insurance; suppliers and contractors; a new computer and administration system; outreach to potential hirers and users of the centre; a maintenance supplier; developing the timetable and membership offering; marketing; the boring bits like writing a very long list of policies but which are essential if anything happens; working with Rye Hospital to act as a delivery arm for some of their outreach work and health referrals; and creating a bank of friends and volunteers for the centre. Dan and I have a “monster-big list of things to do” in the next six months.

The second is paying for all this. Thanks to the Town Clerk for all his sterling work behind the scenes along the way with the frustrations of red-tape, the CIO now has a bank account. Whilst there are many grants out there for capital projects and running schemes, there are far fewer for things like just keeping the lights on – and many of these want you to be up and running for at least a year with a set of accounts. Dan and I have written the business plan and we know, with hard work and a fair wind behind us, we can make this work, and work well. We are putting in funding bids every weekend, we are talking to the Lottery and have put in one bid and are in the process of applying for another one too. Our chair of trustees, Barry Nealon (and none of this would be happening without his amazing zeal and energy), has spoken to a number of potential pool patrons and corporate sponsors. As soon as we get Gift Aid sorted, and a Just Giving page set up, we will let you all know so that you may feel able to chip in and help.

On Saturday July 27 we have a special event at the sports centre from 1030-1130. As well as launching our website and social media, we will have a presentation on what happens next and start our community engagement programme. Please come along.

So, if it seems like a frustratingly long time since November 2022, yes it is, but I don’t think any of us who ventured into this foresaw quite how complex a task we were taking on. This is possibly the biggest charitable exercise in Rye since the Rye, Winchelsea and District Hospital was set up with massive community backing, and what a great endeavour that was and how successful it is today. We are proud to be working with them.

We are also lucky to live in a community with just so many amazing residents. We’d like to say a massive thank you to all those who have given up their time to give us tips and pointers along the way on everything from HR, to IT, to legals, to branding and company values, to understanding leases and everything else – you know who you are and we
couldn’t have done it without you, thank you. We have also been working with some superb RDC officers who could not have been more helpful or supportive.

The community of Rye said we couldn’t lose this vital asset, so we listened and have done everything to ensure we don’t. What we need now is your continued support and backing to keep it all afloat. Thank you and watch this space.

Image Credits: Freedom Leisure , Rye News Library .