£500,000 makeover for baths
Rundown changing rooms and showers at Wednesbury swimming baths are to get a long-awaited makeover after leisure bosses agreed to splash out over £500,000. Complaints from parents and councillors about the state of the facilities at the High Bullen baths have escalated throughout the last two years.
Parents and councillors say the dirty facilities are outdated and unsuitable and do not offer adequate privacy when swimmers are getting changed.
The Sandwell Leisure Trust board last night agreed to spend £535,000 upgrading the baths over the next six months.
The refurbishment, which is due to start on Friday, will see new showers and toilets, family changing areas, larger cubicles and disabled changing facilities.
David Gutteridge, chairman of Sandwell Leisure Trust, said: "The prudent planning of finances over the past two years has now enabled us to commission this extensive refurbishment to the changing areas at Wednesbury Leisure Centre.
"The trust has continually been investing money into its leisure centres since it took over from the council and Wednesbury has already benefited from a new reception area."
Vice-chairman of Wednesbury Town Committee, Councillor Simon Hackett, welcomed the decision.
He said: "I am pleased to hear that the leisure trust has allocated this money to bring them up to scratch."
But Wednesbury North councillor Mavis Hughes, who sent a dossier of photographs of the "disgusting" conditions of the baths to leisure bosses in 2004, said she would believe the improvements when she saw them.
She said: "I went in there to go swimming four to five months ago and things were worse than ever."
By Louise Watt
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