I welcome Elizabeth Dumpleton to the PoolTooSmall website.As an Abbey Theatre and Westminster Lodge customer she is NOT HAPPY with the new Lodge Scheme . Her letter is reproduced in full below.

SIR-Like a lot of other people,it seems,I can drum up no enthusiasm at all with regard to the Westminster Lodge swimming pool project; in fact I have to admit to a sinking feeling every time I consider what will inevitably be, in the long term , a millstone around the taxpayer’s necks.

The scheme seems to be a replica of the Super Hatfield Hospital idea which we had no need for (we couldn’t even afford to keep the perfectly adequate hospitals that we already had going).In the end common sense had prevailed and the project was shelved after a good deal of money had been thrown at it.

I have a sneaky feeling the same could happen here.

For a long time I have been swimming at Westminster Lodge; on average 3 times a week to keep myself fit. Apart from the water usually being a bit cold, so that I have to take a deep breath before I go under , I can see no reason to abolish it; in fact I can only see sense in retaining it , despite its need for some renovation.At the beginning of the year I visited the pool one day with my grandson and granddaughter who spent the whole hour that we were there jumping and diving off the boards  ( a facility they lack at their own Harpenden pool).

Unfortunately, to their disappointment , the “inflatable dragon “ was out of action , owing to some overweight father , who obviously thought he was still a teenager, jumping heavily on it and puncturing it . I haven’t  seen it since.

Why,why,why is our perfectly-adequate swimming pool and leisure centre being pulled down in the first place when it has it all it needs? What about the impinging of the project on the Abbey Theatre? I really do object to this as I am a regular there also;it would be unforgiveable.

I can’t help feeling that if this very controversial scheme goes ahead it will prove to be yet another unnecessary , very expensive pig-in-a-poke.

On my regular travels home from swimming  as I drive up Holywell Hill and through the town , I can’t help thinking how scruffy things are looking with all the boarded up shops and hoardings. What a disappointment to any tourist who might be visiting. Shouldn’t these councillors be giving their attention to this plight? Are they aware that we arein the throes of a recession and don’t need these vast schemes thrust upon us and let’s face it , by the time this needless commodity of theirs comes to fruition, they wil all undoubtedly be seeking to retire to somewhere less expensive to live.

ELIZABETH DUMPLETON Wilstone Drive, St.Albans

Please tell PoolTooSmall at newpooltoosmall@ntlworld.com what you think the expert piglet pool tester is going to say !

From Wikipedia.Pig-in-a-poke is an idiom that refers to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce but cats
were not. The scheme entailed the sale of a suckling pig in a poke (bag). The wriggling bag would actually contain a cat (not particularly prized as
a source of meat) that was sold to the victim in an unopened bag. A common colloquial expression in the English language, to buy a pig in
a poke is to make a risky purchase without inspecting the item beforehand. The phrase can also be applied to accepting an idea or
plan without a full understanding of its basis.