COMMENTS ON SOUTHWARK PROCESS OF LOCATION SELECTION:

Comments on the document which condemns Seven Islands Leisure Centre:

* The purpose is to grab the land of Seven Islands Leisure Centre and to sell it/ make it available for other development.

* To replace the Seven Island Leisure Centre land with its much better 33 meter pool with a site grabbed from a Green Corridor which at present has a nature reserve, cycle lane and pedestrian access to the Tesco Car Park (Future Canada Water Town Centre)

* To make the Leisure Centre as cheap as possible with a smaller swimming pool of 25 meters which will only leave 18 meters when the shallow end is cordoned off for lessons and NOT the 50 meter pool recommended by a former non Labour Administration, promise which will not be honoured.

* To give the contract to British Land without competition or tender so they can deliver whatever they wish to according to the specifications set by Southwark Council and which don’t appear to specify a pool length which may be set verbally.

* The process starts: After meticulously running Seven Islands Leisure Centre in to the ground by not spending anything on maintenance: leaving it without ventilation, closing the mother and toddlers small pool, taking away the diving boards, charging the highest access fees (membership fees). Southwark Council promotes unstable timetables to make it more difficult for the public to use the Leisure Centre. Southwark Council gets a report that tells it that the Leisure Centre is underused and that a lot of money has to be spent and decides that it is better to put the Leisure Centre on another place and that with this it can grab its land.

* This process is done on the basis of false promises: All of a sudden Southwark Council can’t imagine how Seven Islands is in such a state. Southwark Council all of a sudden is concerned about our health (when it was opening the windows and doors in winter and giving us the flu until a few months ago!)

The document describes both sites, their facilities, and creates a situation which tries to force the choice the favoured New Leisure Centre on the Green Corridor as follows:

* That site because of its location is not supposed to be developed now.

* The area round Canada Water is now being developed instead.

* British Land’s nice people will make an exception and develop this particular plot and it will build the New Leisure Centre in exactly 5 years. (there will be no other exceptions for any other plots of land only the green corridor. British Land is only going to help Southwark Council grab this piece)

* Southwark Council who hasn’t spent anything on Seven Islands until the negative consultancy report has arrived is now going to spend 2 million pounds on Seven Islands to improve Reception and other things to last these last 5 years of its life. (when reception dates back to 1965 but must be changed these last five years!) Any way this money it is spending on Seven Islands will last exactly 5 years not a minute more! After that time Seven Islands is going to fall in to little pieces automatically (apparently it won’t be able to carry on any more like it is at present with nobody spending money on it)

Bells and whistles .. promises.. promises : To show how concerned all of a sudden Labour run Southwark Council is with our health and our life expectancy which is less than average. (Which has been going on for years,  and definitively not because it wants to compound this problem even more by grabbing the Leisure Centre) Southwark Council has now come up with a load of buzz words and concepts which are so out of character and totally unheard of before from this Labour run Administration! .. It is hard to think that the Council that left us without even ventilation and catching flu in winter and charging the highest access charges (membership fees for these run down facilities) and has closed the small pool for toddlers and mothers now talks of:

* Southwark’s emerging Health and Wellbeing policy..?

* Canada Water Action plan from 2013 to improve Leisure facilities for all residents and workers from the plan area…?

* Southwark Council’s Fairer Future promise… of access to free swim and free gym facilities.

All these promises will come true if we let go of our Seven Islands Leisure Centre.. . how nice of the Labour run Council! How nice that British Land is there to help!

However if Southwark Council administers any new Leisure Centre with the same policies it applies today, it will get the same results, this is why these politicians out of character promises can’t be believed. What they think today is what they are doing today to us in Seven Islands.