Consultation Document – Parc Eglos Swimming Pool

Pool History & Current Situation

The last significant investment on the swimming pool was during the eighties when volunteers helped raised funds to place a roof over, what at the time was, an outside pool. Since then the pool has been maintained via the school budget under the management of the Local Authority until 2017, when the school became part of the Southerly Point Co-operative MAT. During this period, small pockets of investment were made to meet urgent repairs, including plant. From January 2023 with the closing of Southerly Point Co-operative MAT the school and in turn the swimming pool transferred to Crofty MAT to manage.

Prior to Crofty MAT taking on the Southerly Point MAT schools as part of their due-diligence a full survey of all seven transferring schools was completed by the independent surveyors, Cunningham Taylor. During this survey concerns regarding the condition of the pool were highlighted. This report along with a number of other recent fabric failures ultimately forced Crofty MAT to close the pool to the pupils and public in October 2023.

Since then the Crofty MAT has commissioned and now received a full survey including the estimated costs to make the pool once again a safe and appropriate environment for pupils and the public to swim in. This survey has identified the extent of the works required and in turn the cost.

Plans to Ensure Pupils Swim in the Short/Medium Term

After initial conversation with Helston Community Pool (Better), Crofty MAT have been able to identify appropriate availability to meet the schools needs. In turn the school have now secured swimming slots to meet the national curriculum requirements for the remainder of this academic year and for the first term of the next academic year.

Crofty MAT also plan to engage with Culdrose to see if there may be the opportunity for the school to use their pool. In the past other schools within Crofty MAT have accessed these facilities at a nominal charge.

Capital Investment Required and Possible Sources for Funding

The survey concluded that the investment required to return the swimming pool to an appropriate state to allow pupils and the public to access the facilities, would be £599,720 (inc. £50,000 contingency). The report was completed by Cunningham Taylor and includes a number of elements costed by experts in the swimming pool field.

So what funding is available to Crofty MAT already which could be used to meet this cost?

School Condition Allowance

Crofty MAT attracts the School Condition Allocation (SCA) to pay for capital works on the school estate. Annually the allocation for Crofty MAT is £277k (on average £17.3k for each school). The most recent survey of the school estate has identified over £4 million worth of work that needs to be completed over the next five years. One of the schools is in such a poor state it will require over £750k just to meet minimum standards. So, to conclude it is extremely unlikely that the Trustees of Crofty MAT will release any SCA funding to the swimming pool project now or in the foreseeable future.

Shared reserves of the Crofty schools.

A review of Crofty MAT annual accounts (available on the Crofty MAT website) shows its schools have a shared reserve of £2.6 million (31/08/2023). During the current financial year Crofty MAT is predicted to spend £800k of this reserve, £500k to meet the revenue shortfall and £300k to address some of the estates concerns previously mentioned. Due to significant increases in costs and a shortfall in government funding, the reserve is expected to drop by a further £500k the following year. Therefore, by the 31/08/2025 the Crofty MAT reserve will have dropped to £1.3 million. This would be the minimum reserve level, equal to one month’s salaries, that the Trust would be required to hold by the Department for Education.

In the current budgetary climate, it would be difficult for the Crofty MAT Trustees to justify spending £600k from the reserves on the swimming pool.

So, an external source of funding will need to be sourced if the school pursue a rebuilding program.

Possible external sources:

• Private Donations: One of the swimming pools community users has already contacted a number of local business who have expressed an interest in helping, but to date no firm offers
• Crowd Funding: This was recently successful for the Cadgwith Fishermen, who raised £300k from 8,000 people. But note this fund-raising project was publicised nationally after appearing on BBC’s Countryfile.
• Grants including Sports England: Given the proximity of Parc Eglos school to its community pool, it may be difficult to build a compelling bid. It is also difficult to see how a like for like replacement of the current swimming pool would meet the strict criteria required by a funder like Sports England.

Please note, the above fund-raising options would require the time and resources of both School and Trust staff and would need to be considered balanced against other schools priorities.

Long Term Impact on the Schools Revenue Budget if Ultimately the Decision is Made to Keep the Pool Open

Below is a projection of the running costs for a future pool if it was to remain open after capital funding is secured.

Type	Annual Cost	Assumption
Annual Running Cost	£21,350	Allowance for utilities, chemicals, compliance, annual maintenance and daily checks
Annual Investment Fund	£20,000	Fund created to ensure future capital costs can be meet
Annual Income	£4,341	Current income after associated lettings costs
Annual Net Loss	(£37,009)	Community users make use of all capacity 4pm-9pm Monday to Friday & 10am-4pm Saturday
Potential Annual Income	£19,087	Community users make use of all capacity 4pm-9pm Monday to Friday & 10am-4pm Saturday
Potential Annual Net Loss	(£22,263)

The figures above clearly show that a reinstated swimming pool, albeit with a £20k fund to ensure future capital costs can be meet, based on current usage would cost the school £37,009 per annum. This figure could be reduced to £22,263 if the community usage was increased fourfold on the current usage.

To put this cost in context the entire resource budget (excluding ICT) for the school is currently £44,395.

Educational Notes

The National Curriculum states that for swimming and water safety:

All schools must provide swimming instruction either in KS1 or KS2. In particular, pupils should be taught to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres
• use a range of strokes effectively (for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke)
• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations.

The Crofty MAT objectives for swimming are:

• Through working with other community providers, it would be the aim to maintain the high standards in line with the minimum National Curriculum expectations whilst providing pupils with a broad range of opportunities including, but not exclusive to:
• Swimming in a 25m pool where children will be out of their depth
• Open water swimming
• Beach safety inc. Surfing

Please note typical swimming provision for other schools within Crofty MAT is, four-year groups in KS2, with each year group receiving six swimming sessions, so twenty-four sessions in total.

The current provision at Parc Eglos is exceptional and therefore not typical of offers made by the majority of primary schools throughout Cornwall.

Proposals for Consultation

• keep the pool, including raising the capital funds required to rebuild and reopen
• remove the pool and repurpose the space including raising the capital funds required to offer a new facility
• remove the pool and reinstate hard standing

Once the Working Group have collated the information from the consultation it will published the findings on the Parc Eglos School website. As part of the process the Crofty MAT will also publish next steps based on the feedback received.

We thank you for your help and co-operation in this matter.

Parc Eglos Swimming Pool Working Group

(Sub-Committee of the Parc Eglos Local Governing Body)