Swimming is a life skill that all young people should have the opportunity to learn.
It is also great fun and a fantastic form of exercise which can help those young and old to improve their fitness.
And it can help those who are recovering from an injury, thanks to the support provided by the water to the body.
For those reasons and many more – not least the horrifying waste of public money at a time of incredible need within the city – the long-term closure of Dundee’s main swimming pool, Olympia, is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
In the circumstances, you might think that every possible alternative lever would be pulled to provide the opportunity to swim elsewhere.
But new analysis by this newspaper shows the gulf left by Olympia has not be filled.
At 51 hours, the city now provides less public lane swimming in a week than is available in Orkney – Britain’s smallest local authority area.
Fife – a much larger geographic area – fares much better in the analysis, with its nine publicly accessible pools providing almost seven times as much swimming time as in Dundee currently.
Dundee swimmers need alternatives to Olympia
Dundee-based MSP Michael Marra has voiced his frustrations at the situation, and is right to do so.
The city has a long and proud swimming tradition which is being betrayed.
The buck for that stops with Leisure and Culture Dundee, the arms length body which operates Olympia and other city pools on behalf of the city council.
They need to step up to mitigate the problem which has occurred on their watch.
With Olympia set to be out of action for another year – if not longer given the less than proud history elsewhere of the protracted nature of remedial works on major public buildings – alternate provision must be kept under constant review and optimised wherever possible.
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