© South Wales Evening Post - 11 August 2005
The ruling coalition and Labour councillors on Swansea Council are busy scoring political points off each other over the Pool Sanctuary debacle. The truth is that both sides need to come clean about this sorry affair that is costing council tax payers dearly.
Labour needs to justify why it chose the Pool Sanctuary just as it was getting terrible publicity over the decision to close Swansea Leisure Centre a few months before the elections that swept it from power last year. It insists that it had the backing of council officers to turn the Pool Sanctuary into a replacement Activa gym.
Yet just a couple of months later the new coalition led group on the council had halted the plans, claiming council officers were insisting the building was not suitable.Who is right? Did council officers fall down on the job, or was it a case of the right hand not knowing what the left was doing? We need to know and that is why there should be an independent investigation.
The ruling coalition, meanwhile, is hardly covering itself in laurels over this affair, as evidenced by the dilly-dallying over a site for the new gym. It needs to come up with a scheme, and quickly.
