12:32pm Thursday 10th November 2005
By Alex Lewis
THE closure of Bricket Wood swimming pool for 18 months looks set to cost council tax payers' more than £50,000 in a compensation claim.
Leisure Connection, which runs the pool, is blaming St Albans District Council for the entrance fees lost when the pool was shut between March 2004 and September this year.
The pool was initially closed when a glass pane broke in a gale, but the incident revealed a number of other structural problems which had to be fixed before the public could be re-admitted. The company argues this was because of poor basic maintenance, which is the council's responsibility, and last week's cabinet meeting authorised leisure boss Kevin Tighe to negotiate a settlement.
Bricket Wood parish councillor Ian Getley said: "If the maintenance had been carried out in the first place, this would not have cost so much and it certainly would not have required the pool to be closed for the time it was.
"If the window had been replaced earlier, then the pool would have been open in a few weeks. It was totally unacceptable, because so many people were inconvenienced."
A spokesman for the district council leisure department said: "The windows were blown in due to an act of God it was not related to poor maintenance."
Leisure Connection has been named as preferred bidder to run the council's facilities for the next ten years. But the deal has not yet been signed. A spokesman for the company said: "We are in on-going discussions with St Albans District Council about this issue."
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