Work progressing at Bishop's Castle's SpArC centre
The next phase of a major refurbishment at Bishop's Castle's SpArC centre will go ahead next month.
Much-needed work on the changing rooms at the previously threatened leisure centre will begin on February 19, closing the pool for three weeks.
The refurbishment will involve work additional to the original plan to combat saturated flooring and a faulty stop tap in the women's changing area, which was due to take place last year.
While this extends the project, the centre hopes it will get to the root causes of what has been a very long-standing problem.
Shropshire Council has committed an investment of £100,000 to the works at SpArC, which has come as welcome news for the centre after it was threatened with closure in 2016 when the council announced plans to pull funding from its leisure services.
The first stage of the refurbishment was replacing the dehumidifier, which was completed before Christmas and is now said to be working well.
A spokesman for Shropshire Council apologised for the delay in completing the changing room works and endorsed the future commitment of the council to SpArC as a tier one leisure facility.
Save the SpArC campaigners have thanked the centre users for their patience and said the changing area would be "transformed" once the work is complete.
They said: "Although we know that the loss of the pool will be a problem for many, the contractor stresses that they will work closely with the centre to disrupt services as little as possible.
"The process involves major repairs to the changing rooms to bring them up to standard and should result in transformed changing facilities.
"Everyone involved in the works would like to thank customers at SpArC, and in particular the pool users, for their patience whilst this work is undertaken."
The swimming pool is scheduled to reopen on Monday, March 12, when the state-of-the-art changing facilities will be unveiled.
Peter Davis, Shropshire Council’s leisure services manager, said: “The £100,000 Shropshire Council funding will see a total refurbishment of the swimming pool changing rooms that will include flooring, walls, doors, ceilings, vanity units, changing benches, toilets and showers.
"We have worked closely with the operator, Teme Leisure, and the SpArC Foundation, who will fund the replacement lockers."
