Private Eye and Tunstall Baths

There was an article in Private Eye under the Nooks and Corners section on the fate of Tunstall Baths in this week's edition

" More on the closure of Britain's swimming pools which sems to continue as spending cuts bite.

Stoke Council has just announced that Tunstall Baths in Grengates St is to close. Opened in 1889, this is, at present the oldest listed public swimming pool which is still open and one of only 14 , out of 50 listed baths , which still remains in use- for swimming.

This brick and terra cotta neo-Jacobean building contains one of the pools in which Ian Dungavell , director of the Victorian Society swam as part of his epic swimathon to draw attention to the plight of the country's historic pools. Redundant swimming pools are notoriously difficult buildings to find new uses for, and often end up derelict of demolished. As Dungavell now comments, the Tunstall pool " is a popular and well-used facility, and the council should be looking at ways to keep it going so that future generations can enjoy swimming there too.

"We've got to think about sustainability, and not being a throwaway society. It's difficult to imagine that the building could be used for anything but a swimming pool, so it should be kept as one. Too often around the country councils have closed listed swimming pools, and have only thought afterwards what should be done with them".

I would agree with the sentiments expressed in the piece and it would be a pity that in the 100th year of the City's creation a building that saw its birth should be under threat. Swimming pools as the City Council has found out can be a potent focus around community activity can be mobilised and I am thinking as much of Burslem as I am of the experience of the South Manchester baths that won the first BBC series of buildings that were under threat a few years ago. Perhaps the experience of South Manchester might serve as a model for action?