Claire Vibert: Labour Candidate for Marple North

[amazon]

I call it realism!  Anyway, what makes you think I'm sat at home?

were did i say you were sat at home .

[jimblob]

Your all ways looking for a problem .lets all sit at home an be negative .ive told you there are very good grants available .

I call it realism!  Anyway, what makes you think I'm sat at home?

[amazon]

Reading up on a couple of case studies from Sport England. I'm.not sure they work at quite the level to pay for "most" of an entire swimming pool. I very much suspect we'd be several million short of the price tag

Your all ways looking for a problem .lets all sit at home an be negative .ive told you there are very good grants available .

[jimblob]

What about geronticide ?  That would help free up the roads and hospital beds 

Even scrooge failed in that quest in reducing the surplus population.. it's also highly illegal and certainly not a vote winner, certainly not in Marple anyway

[PhilB]

What about geronticide ?  That would help free up the roads and hospital beds 

[jimblob]

Bet you wouldn't  ...
Not sure I could stand, I'd end up trying to kill someone, and my "boil the ocean" approach to solve world hunger et-al would probably solve nothing.

Transport, however is the lifeblood of so many other things, if it works, so many other things do to! On a national level, first the canals, then the railways transformed our lives as well as industry, as did the car; on an international level so did the Jet engine. We've come now to depend on our mobility for so many aspects of our lives, it slowly is now being taken away from us and is crippling us. I can only liken it to a hardening of the arteries. As a human, if the blood stops everything else stops, so the last thing you do is fur up those arteries any farther, you open them up as much as you possibly can. It's not ideal but it's better than a heart attack!

We seem incredibly good at wasting money on Utopian ideals and missing the elephant in the room, (other than when we see said elephant, we decide to spend money on having it painted white, probably by an outsourced company that over-charges us). A few well made strategic decisions at a high enough level could make a real difference, and despite my right-of-centre political stance, I kinda like what Andy Burnham is trying to do across Manchester (although I wholly disagree with the numbers of new homes allegedly required to be built as part of the GMSF). Sadly all we seem to do is bicker over the small stuff, blame national government for spending cuts or Brexit (it's all our taxes wherever it comes from!) and end up achieving nothing. It saddens me that progress is depicted as a picture of a local Councillor shared on social media, pointing at a pothole he's managed to get filled in or smiling aside a new speed hump that has finally been installed that a handful of local residents have campaigned for but in reality detrimentally affects thousands of commuting motorists (and incidentally causes more air pollution by impeding the motorist).
Surely the human race has the capacity to transcend this minutiae or are we merely headed for the same fate as the Romans and the Egyptians before us?

Maybe I should stand ? 

[Dave]

This is a strange thread.   It's a bit perverse for someone who constantly complains (with some justification) about traffic congestion to argue that we should put even more people on to the roads by not replacing our swimming pool!

And just in case anyone thinks £5 million will produce any significant improvement in local transport, have a look at this:  https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmpubacc/440/44007.htm.  Construction costs of light rail /tram systems: about £15 million per mile. 

A town with a population of 23,000 should have its own swimming pool. It's a no brainer! 

[andrewbowden]

Sometimes, locals insisting on their own swimming pool isn't the only problem and the same money spent elsewhere could be used to ameliorate many more problems. I think it's called compromise.

Tell you what, let's cut everything from the council budget that's not transport, and rebrand the council as Transport for Stockport.  After all, it would get rid of so many more problems.  Good compromise.

Why aren't you standing?  I'd vote for you.

VOTE JIMBLOB!

[jimblob]

Sometimes transport links are not the problem.

Sometimes, locals insisting on their own swimming pool isn't the only problem and the same money spent elsewhere could be used to ameliorate many more problems. I think it's called compromise.

[andrewbowden]

Hence my comment about...
Spending £5m on transport infrastructure rather than a pool in Marple so that Life Leisure members can more easily get to some of these other facilities might be a far better use of funds and would at the same time ameliorate Marple's other hot topic of conversation, traffic!
Some might consider it not convenient to spend huge sums of taxpayer's money on a pool in our own back garden when there are very well equipped facilities nearby when we can't even get to work to pay those taxes because our transport infrastructure is so bad

Your suggestion only works if you can make further away pools more attractive for people in Marple to use.  And I don't understand how spending £5m on transport is going to make it easier for anyone to get to Avondale or Cheadle.  They're still miles away.  They will still take 25-30 minutes for people to get to.

Meanwhile Romiley is still on our doorstep.  And it's still struggling with capacity.  You could spend as much money as you want improving transport links to Romiley pool and it would still be struggling with capacity.

Sometimes transport links are not the problem.

[jimblob]

It's easy to say everyone should go to Avondale (and I do go to Avondale once a week) but it's a 25 minute drive and hardly convenient.  Cheadle pool is 30 minutes away.  Grand Central 20.  That's not convenient.

Hence my comment about...
Spending £5m on transport infrastructure rather than a pool in Marple so that Life Leisure members can more easily get to some of these other facilities might be a far better use of funds and would at the same time ameliorate Marple's other hot topic of conversation, traffic!
Some might consider it not convenient to spend huge sums of taxpayer's money on a pool in our own back garden when there are very well equipped facilities nearby when we can't even get to work to pay those taxes because our transport infrastructure is so bad

[andrewbowden]

One could argue that spending circa £5m on another pool is ridiculous. I'm merely questioning whether such a cost is justifiable in the current financial climate and in Marple when there are already facilities close by that are bigger and very well equipped. Life leisure has facilities in Stockport at Avondale, Bramhall, Brinnington Park, Cheadle, Dialstone, Grand Central, Hazel Grove, Houldsworth Village... It would be very interesting to see the numbers specific to Marple? Spending £5m on transport infrastructure rather than a pool in Marple so that Life Leisure members can more easily get to some of these other facilities might be a far better use of funds and would at the same time ameliorate Marple's other hot topic of conversation, traffic!

You assume other pools can simply absorb the traffic. 

Romiley pool now has capacity problems because of the extra patronage caused by Marple's closure.  Whilst some will have gone elsewhere, most children doing swimming lessons moved from Marple to Romiley.  Romiley pool has had to reduce its public swimming hours by 10.5 hours a week because of the Marple closure.  That's eight to accommodate the extra swimming lessons, and 2.5 to accommodate swimming clubs.  School swimming that once took place at Marple has had to move.  This impacts the pool capacity at the pools the schools have had to move to.  People are struggling to get parking spaces, especially when lessons are on.

It's easy to say everyone should go to Avondale (and I do go to Avondale once a week) but it's a 25 minute drive and hardly convenient.  Cheadle pool is 30 minutes away.  Grand Central 20.  That's not convenient. 

[jimblob]

This was 2015 at Life Leisure venues in Stockport. To suggest Marple doesn't need such a facility ( because of cost ) is just ridiculous.

One could argue that spending circa £5m on another pool is ridiculous. I'm merely questioning whether such a cost is justifiable in the current financial climate and in Marple when there are already facilities close by that are bigger and very well equipped. Life leisure has facilities in Stockport at Avondale, Bramhall, Brinnington Park, Cheadle, Dialstone, Grand Central, Hazel Grove, Houldsworth Village... It would be very interesting to see the numbers specific to Marple? Spending £5m on transport infrastructure rather than a pool in Marple so that Life Leisure members can more easily get to some of these other facilities might be a far better use of funds and would at the same time ameliorate Marple's other hot topic of conversation, traffic!

[PhilB]

This was 2015 at Life Leisure venues in Stockport. To suggest Marple doesn't need such a facility ( because of cost ) is just ridiculous.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[jimblob]

I'm sure Life Leisure have all the data you - and the council - need.

Sadly, history tells us the council "need" little justification to do or not do as they please regardless of information available to them. Might be something to pursue myself though as per your suggestion. A little "exercise" of my own one might say