Earlier news
Events
The very well attended public meeting on 24 October at Hilsea's Blue Lagoon proved to be an overwhelming success.
Supporters of Hilsea Lido's swimming pool from all over the greater Portsmouth area were joined by local councillors and representatives from interested parties to hear how there now existed the exciting opportunity to join together as a voluntary group with the aim of very soon winning for themselves the running rights of this Olympic size outdoor pool - all by themselves and in just the way they would wish.
The meeting resulted in over three quarters of the audience coming forward to join with and considerably swell by a factor of six the numbers of those already keen to grasp this Government backed opportunity. This now encourages local authorities to pass on the management and ownership of such assets as this pool to acceptable 'third party' public bodies.
This much-loved local facility is set to be closed permanently by the Council as soon as the new indoor pool is built and operating at the Mountbatten Centre unless a new operator can be found to run it quite independently.
Encouraging examples of just how readily this can be achieved by the public was amply illustrated at this meeting. Presentations from visiting and much experienced representatives from publicly, charitably-run pools at Petersfield and at Arundel clearly showed the responsibilities but also the great rewards and fun that go with the local public deciding to run Lido pools by themselves, for themselves and left little doubt that this was the best way for such pools to survive today.
Time left in which to work towards doing so at Hilsea is now short, with the Council planning to have the pool open for one more very short and final season next year during the summer school holidays.
However, the response from this evening's meeting certainly proved to be most encouraging and will be built upon at a further meeting at the same place, the Blue Lagoon, and at the same time of 7pm on Friday 2nd November when this now much bigger and emboldened group welcomes others to also attend and offer their time, interest, knowledge, skills and other abilities but, above all, their enthusiasm and determination to resurrect this once wonderful pool.