The continuing closure of Dundee’s Olympia leisure centre is a disgrace. And those who are paid hefty wages to oversee the running of leisure facilities in the city need to start earning their keep and sort out the scandalous situation pronto.
There’s nothing like a nice cooling swim on a roasting hot summer’s day. Especially during the summer holidays when the bairns have seven long restless weeks to keep themselves amused.
But there’s certainly nothing like a cooling dook to be had in Dundee, where bathers’ temperatures are currently reaching boiling point at the lack of anywhere to dip even a toe in the water.
And Dundee kids and their parents won’t be looking out their swimming cossies or Speedos for a trip to the pool any time soon.
We’re told the Olympia complex will be closed for well over a year and perhaps longer.
The fact that Olympia could be shut until at least October 2023, with costs of more than £6 million to repair is astounding.
In the week we’ve all enjoyed a bit of light-hearted fun with the sign on Dundee Law heralding the city as Beanotown, we could do without the current comic-cuts situation surrounding one of the town’s most important civic features.
There have even been suggestions that the Olympia centre may have to be demolished.
Let’s hope that’s just steamie talk. Because if there’s any truth in it heads would surely have to roll at the prospect of leveling a centre built at a cost of £33M only nine years ago.
Dundee could open up other swimming pool provision
With Lochee baths closed one day last week, due to a lack of chlorine, we had the ridiculous situation of folk in Scotland’s fourth biggest city having to travel to Perth or St. Andrews if they fancied a splash.
At least the Lochee pool has been running for around 130 years, making the situation with the Olympia look even more scandalous.
There are good pools in some of the city secondary schools, including St John’s, St Paul’s, and Harris Academy.
And these are sometimes open for night time lane swimming I’m told.
So it can’t be beyond the organisational powers of city officials to press them into service during the day to allow the city’s youngsters the opportunity to have a bit of fun.
But Dundee has long lacked joined-up thinking generally in the provision of sports facilities.
I remember talk of a one-stop sports village to complement the proposed shared football stadium which was mooted at Caird Park for the Euro Championships in 2008.
But those Championships went to Austria and Switzerland, and the stadium and sports village came to nothing.
It could have been a real winner and a huge attraction for visitors from outside the city.
But it became another missed opportunity.
So what we have to do now is to make the facilities we do have sweat and earn their keep.
City kids need us to think big
It’s too cheap a shot to complain about unruly kids with time on their hands causing bother.
Let’s provide the facilities and the opportunities for them to burn off their youthful energy and exuberance.
We can start by opening the school swimming pools and gyms which should be available all day and at night for their local communities. These are the people who pay the taxes which built those facilities in the first place, after all.
Said before and will say again, Tayside was too dependant on this training pool. Timetable was always packed. The area needs another solution.
Dundee Olympia closure hits Tayside swimming clubs 'like a hammer blow'… https://t.co/pkdTxjnkb5 via @thecourieruk
— Blair C Dingwall (@C_BDingwall) January 7, 2022
Dundee has been blighted by drugs deaths and a lack of opportunity for our youngsters in recent years. We need to make sure that they have every chance to avoid temptation by providing them with healthy alternatives.
We should be making as much provision as possible for kids to enjoy themselves in sports and summer camps. And encouraging every other form of activity which keeps them occupied and develops their sense of community and civic pride.
Won’t it be expensive?
It won’t be half as expensive as not doing it in the long run.
As a city Dundee has often swayed between small time parochialism and big time thinking.
The V&A Dundee, the Waterfront, and indeed the original Olympia centre on the banks of the Tay are all examples of ambitious and forward civic thinking.
Now it’s time to show some more of that bold ambition and drive to give the kids something to do.
And to make it affordable – even free- so that no one is excluded on the grounds of cost.
Open school pools to the public
I have happy memories of staying at my big sister’s flat in Park Avenue in the school summer holidays when singalongs and concerts in Baxter Park were held.
They featured among others a well known Corporation bus conductor on the Kirkton route, who was introduced as ‘Uncle Albert’.
He was given time off his duties by the Corpy to play the piano and entertain us.
In fairness, modern kids would probably run a mile from something as uncool as that nowadays.
But the sentiment was a sound one and it remains the same. Give the kids something to do.
If Olympia is to remain out of action let’s splash out on the civic budget by opening the school pools.
And let that be just for starters.
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