TEMPLE Cowley Pools (TCP) will be flattened to make way for 47 new homes after campaigners last night lost a battle to keep the complex open.

After four years of fighting to save it, campaigners said they were “disgusted” their bid for a community-run pool was rejected.

Some 50 campaigners shouted and jeered as Oxford city councillors voted unanimously to instead accept a £3.5m bid from housing association Catalyst.

The council’s city executive board debated the two bids for the site in a special 90-minute meeting at the Town Hall.

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The decision will now be considered by the scrutiny committee, at a date yet to be set.

Catalyst said more than half of the 47 homes planned for the site would be affordable, which the association said would help tackle the city’s “housing crisis”.

Save Temple Cowley Pools wanted to lease the site from the council, keep the pool and open a community centre alongside 17 social housing properties.

Chairman of the executive board and leader of the council Bob Price said: “It was a decision between a guaranteed capital receipt of £3.5m and 47 new houses for Oxford, or a community bid that had a lot of uncertainty.”

Councillor for Churchill ward Susan Brown said: “I really wanted to be swayed by [the campaign’s] proposals. Unfortunately there are far too many dangerous assumptions being made.”

Nine councillors on the board voted in favour, with Bob Price abstaining as chairman.

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Catalyst director of development Julia Moulder said: “This is excellent news and we are delighted to be chosen as the city’s partner.

“Oxford is one of the UK’s least affordable places to buy or rent and there is a dire shortage of affordable homes in and around the city.

“As a charitable housing association, Catalyst is committed to tackling the housing crisis and our proposal for the Temple Cowley site will bring much-needed affordable homes – enabling more local people to live in the area.”

But campaigners said that the area would suffer with the loss of the pool.

Save Temple Cowley Pools campaign leader Jane Alexander said: “This is very disappointing because the grounds on which they have made this decision were wrong. The council says it had to make the decision on a financial basis according to its own guidelines, but there are ethical guidelines as well.

“You cannot compare commercial viability and community importance.”

Cowley resident Martin Tasker, 64, said: “It’s disgusting. Oxford City Council are asset stripping Cowley, firstly by taking away our lovely community centre and now our swimming pool.”

Regular TCP user and Dalya Moss, 36, from Wood Farm, who relies on TCP for pain rehabilitation, was at the meeting.

She said: “I was referred to Temple Cowley Pools by the Nuffield through an exercise referral scheme.

“It has helped my chronic pain immensely and I’ve go there three times a week. I won’t be able to go to the new pool in Blackbird Leys as it will cost me £4 to travel there which is more than I pay to use the pool in Temple Cowley.”

The closure of the Temple Cowley leisure complex is part of council plans to replace it with a newer £9.23m building in Blackbird Leys.

Oxford City Council said it could no longer afford to maintain the older building. After 18 months of construction, the Leys centre is set to open in the new year and will feature an eight-lane, 25-metre competition-standard swimming pool.

Councillor for Littlemore John Tanner said: “We’ve made the right decision for Oxford. We now have 47 new homes being built, and a swimming pool being opened in Blackbird Leys which can cater for the needs of those in Cowley.”

Last night’s decision comes after years of fighting by Oxford residents to save the pool. As early as 2006, the suggestion was made that TCP could close, although it was four more years until an official announcement.

The protesters’ first real victory came in April this year, when they managed to get the pool recognised as an Asset of Community Value. The designation gave the campaign six months to buy the pool before it went on the open market.

The council’s own head of city development Michael Crofton-Briggs said it was “clearly a valuable resource to many”.


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