Usually when we hear that the outdoor pool will not be opening next season it is because of some problem. This time things are quite different. The Vale of White Horse District Council have announced that they will replace Abingdon’s Abbey Meadow Outdoor Pool with a brand new pool.
The new pool will include a shallow beach area allowing easy access to the water, and a deep water area for swimmers and diving.
The outdoor pool will be closed for construction over the summer of 2017 but the splash park and kiosk will continue to operate. Swimmers can always use the leisure centre in Abingdon, or Hinksey outdoor pool on the Abingdon Road in Oxford.
Cllr Matthew Barber, Leader of Vale of White Horse District Council, said: ‘This year we saw more than 33,000 visitors to the outdoor pool, our busiest summer for many years… The replacement work will mean that future generations will also be able to enjoy an outdoor swim by the River Thames in Abingdon.‘
But let’s not over look the fact visitor numbers were artificially high because the leasure centre pool was closed for several weeks in summer, swimming lessons and classes that would have used the indoor pool transferred to the outdoor one.
According to the Vales web site the pool at the leasure centre closed for ten weeks, it goes on to say more than 320,000 people use the pool annually, no wonder visitor numbers were up then?
i just dont see that outdoor swimming works in the uk for more than 1 week of the year. who would swim in the cold when they could swim indoors in the warm instead?
Temperature, rather than weather, permitting, I would always prefer to swim outdoors. I just wish it opened longer hours for those of us that work. I think this is great news and should guarantee this facility for many years.
In my youth (in the last millennium), I used to swim at the Brockwell Park lido in South London. Funnily enough, the water in winter was often warmer than the air temperature; so it was getting out that was worse then diving in.
Mind you, if I’d had more sense I might have been 6′ 6″ rather than 5′ 10″….
I don’t live in or near Abingdon but spend a lot of time there in the summer boating. The people of Abingdon really to to appreciate the lovely town they have and stop moaning about it all the time. I can assure there are so many places worse to live that are just left to stagnate with no improvement whatsoever. For once moaners on here give it a rest !
My childhood spent in Brockwell Lido also. More used to outdoor swimming back then…When the family moved to Abingdon, 1976. Spent many happy times in the pool. Lately with work, times do not allow.
great they are doing this to the pool, My kids are probably a bit too old for it now, but so glad it has been secured for generations to come. Lets hope they extend the opening hours as suggested so the adults can use it in the evening in June/ July after work.
Chris John maybe you should try living here full time. Maybe you would join us in a little moan. I don’t see many traffic jams along the river itself so it probably does seem like a lovely town to you.
We will see if the outdoor pool opens again you only have to look at the state of the guildhall !! How long has that been shut for now ? Also how much revenue has been lost for weddings, parties etc !!
Bemused. Abingdon is not the only place in the world that has traffic jams. Maybe you should get out more
Thanks Chris – it is always great to hear that visitors enjoy their time here, do please spread the word as we need more of you. It is of course a fact of life that a place seems very different for those living there – I have family in various tourist spots here and overseas who would agree with that – but it is good to be reminded of the good things as well as the bad.
Here here, the traffic here can be a bit of a pain but nowhere near as bad as in Tunbridge Wells, Harrogate, Exter or Greenwich where I’ve also lived.
The problem is that traffic everywhere is much worse than it was in the past because there are many more of us with cars.
Exter. Iain? That’s a bit native-speak for a Yorkshireman 🙂
Happy Christmas!
Lots of places i have lived in the past recognised there’s a traffic problem and have striven to overcome them.
Oh well- lived in Abingdon all me life and can’t remember there being traffic problems pre Abits?
Remember peak-oil ? the much talked about point where oil usage would outstrip supply… well it never arrived (or at least discovery/production of same has outstripped consumption). Now ‘they’ are talking about car-max, the point where due to various factors (uber, public transport, constraints of existing road infrastructure), car ownership starts to top out or even fall back. Maybe this is what OCC are waiting for so they can say ‘well, see, we didn’t have to build all those roads for you anyway
Captain: what was car ownership per family like before ABITS? I think Iain is right when he says that we all own more cars than we used to. The average is more than one per household. When we grew up, it was far less than that.
We have to live in a 21st century world with a road system based on a pre-20th century urban layout.
How would you design the road system for Abingdon? I have to say that I would struggle. Indeed, I think I would fail.
Happy Christmas.
PPJS, the Abits scheme had a fundamental pre cursor, a second river crossing, but like many things Abingdon was promised, it never happened, what’s more the only southern route for one has now been built on, I refer to Morland Garden that no one in Abingdon wanted but our voices were over-ruled by one Cllr Nimmo Smith ( who incedentally has just been over-ruled by his fellow cabinet members because he wanted to allow buses, taxis & cycles to use Queen St, Oxford) the opportunity to make a real difference to our traffic problems has been lost, what’s more with new house building spilling out of control and demand our traffic issues can only worsen, ask anyone living in south of town or Drayton, But there are very real ways the situation could be improved, if only our leaders had the will to do so!
I live in south Abingdon, so I know the problem(s). And I recall the “promise” of second river crossing. You still haven’t specified what should be done with the situation as it now is. I know the questions, but I don’t know the answers.
I have the same number of cars as before abits. So we don’t ‘all’ own more cars than pre Abits.
I also have an above average number of fingers, gawd bless statistics.
If i were to design a road system, and i spent millions of pounds of tax payers money on consultants to work on a solution (as my council had palmed out the ex-spurtesse to said consultants with no vested interest in our local area), I kinda think it would be a good starting point if those consultants either:
-Took our money but improved the situation.
– didn’t improve the situation, so graciously didn’t take our money
As it happens, not only did they not improve the situation at all, they arguably have made it far worse. In making it so much worse, it appears they still took our money.
It wasn’t even the right “type” of system for our town. And this monumental of all mess-ups only happens to come to light when a private individual tried to improve the situation that the consultants and various councils left us with…you know, those councils with our interests at heart?
I don’t know about you, but i spend far too much time working in a job i hate to earn enough money to pay council tax to be content to allow it to be proverbially p’eed up the wall on a situation that leaves us far worse off than we were in the first place; yet have to apear grateful with this situation because, well, at least someone’s doing something.
To top it off, this ineptitude purvades almost every decision that our masters and betters come up with. Or, if their ill decision is founded on some sort of qualified opinion, then they are equally inept in communicating this; such is the contempt they hold us in. Either we are too stupid to understand, or too stupid too notice; that’s the thinking, it seems.
The list of examples to support this point of view is long, but i am happy to have it countered and tempered by an equally long list that extends beyond lovely flowers and free wi-fi.
I hate to sound like Ebeneezer, but… I don’t know what you South Abingdonian’s are moaning about ?
Nimmo-Smith clearly said that moving those traffic lights would solve all the problems and there’d be no jams on the Drayton Road.
ho ho ho…..
Daniel, you are wasting your breath.
Now the Vale have approved development on the North of Abingdon’s green belt we are scrooged…
Those 800 houses will be built, infrastructure in place or not. ( not as it happens… lets be honest..)
The Lodgehill interchange wont be modified until after the park and ride is built at Sunningwell.
And then we can add another 1200+ houses on the airfield.
So best enjoy the traffic now, because its only going to get worse..
Merry Christmas from The Vale of White Horse District Council.
… Sounds like we have one barber too many in Abingdon, Lyle…