The difficult circumstances at the swimming pool in the Soll Leisure Centre have arisen through bad management.
From the onset of them taking over the running of the swimming pool it has been a real let down for the residents of Daventry and the surrounding area.

The swimming pool is meant to be giving a second to none enjoyable experience for everyone swimming there.
Local people have become irate because they are paying high council tax and are then expected to accept dirty facilities at the swimming pool when paying for tuition lessons for their children.
The changing rooms are not only dirty at the time these children are using the swimming pool.
Then, to add insult to injury, after numerous complaints over a long period of time nothing has significantly changed.

I have been monitoring these changing areas regularly at different times of the day, making special visits to Daventry for the last 16 months. The reason being in the first place this amenity was filthy. Children were rubbing black sludge from the drain gullies up to their thighs and then getting into the swimming pool.
There are smelly toilets and a very bad smell of sewage in the surrounding areas at different times of the day.

Another thing which was not acceptable was the pool had very cold water on occasions when I took small children to enjoy the water experience.
They could not enjoy themselves because they soon became blue with cold.
As the manager did not seem able to rectify the problems after many complaints from many people, I took this to Daventry District Council and the environmental health division. Things did improve slightly.

Soll needs to take on more regular cleaning staff and it needs to be deep cleaned on a regular basis.
They should not rely on young lifeguards to keep the changing area clean.

I support free swimming for the children in the school holidays, but I think to avoid this problem they should finish half an hour earlier so that there is time for the facilities to be hygienically cleared for the use of children who are having paid tuition. These people have been very patient. After complaining many times, they are still paying the term fees and supporting the centre, which has sub-standard levels of hygiene.
M J Nightingale
Glebe Lane
Staverton