The following paragraphs were taken from an article in the variant (Arts and culture magazine) which is free and is also available online
Govanhill Baths was effectively dosed by Glasgow City Council on 29th March 2001, against the wishes of the unconsulted local community—the majority of users of this long essential service on their doorstep. Glasgow's 'Govanhill Pool: Southside Against Closure', the community protest group, undertook their own detailed survey to assess the impact. The study was damning. It revealed that six months on 55% of former users had not used other swimming facilities; those most affected being retired people (75%), the unemployed (77%), the sick or disabled or not fit for work (68.7%), and the Indian/Pakistani community (90%)—the enclosed Edwardian style pool has been identified in a Sport Scotland study on 'Ethnic Minorities and Sport' as a Best Practice example of breaking down barriers to participation in sport as the Baths' enclosed facilities provides privacy and permits segregated swimming for men and women. To top it all, Govanhill Baths lies in the unhealthiest constituency in Britain and yet the health impact of the closure on the local community was not even considered by the Council, who seem to be insistent on a policy of taking fitness facilities out of local communities and centralising them for car users—73% of households in Govanhill do not have a car according to a Community Scotland Study.
Only due to the commitment and ingenuity of the local community does Glasgow City Council still have the opportunity to go some way to redeeming itself. Variant met up with Fatima Uygun, formerly of Southside Against Closure, to catch up on the latest developments with Govanhill Baths...
"Im sure there are some good architects about, we just have to find them"
__________
Archie Graham, the local Councilor for the area of Shawlands / Strathbungo, has not objected to one housing development in the last five years—he used to be on our Community Council, but doesn't turn up any more—at the same time
community facilities are being shut down. The Council will argue, 'Look at all this regeneration happening in the area.' There is the odd cafe opening up but that only looks like regeneration when you look at the devastation immediately before it when they built the one way road system through Govanhill that shut dozens of businesses down. The fact that one has reopened is not an endorsement of the whole approach.
What distresses me the most is that somehow the argument over the public subsidy of private business has crept in and been won. In the community people are led to believe that the council, the government, don't have any money and we have to do this. More and more doubt is being cast on these Public Private Projects—recently, for example, Fife abandoned such a school building scheme and even the government's Audit watchdog has cast serious doubt on the long term efficiency of the scheme in terms of debt being accrued for the tax payer. Getting into bed with big business was once something of a slur, now the meetings that go on with private companies in Glasgow is astounding.
So Govanhill Baths Trust's next move is to have a public meeting and we've got to start our press push. There was a great article in the Guardian at the start of the Olympics on the state of pools in the UK—we've one swimmer from Glasgow—and they mentioned Govanhill pool campaign. The other thing is Manchester pools that won the' restoration programme received £3.8m with £1 million of this in donations from ordinary people, so we'd like to do something like that. We're determined to keep the cost of a swim affordable for all the community.
What's great about living in Govanhill is that if we'd been situated anywhere else we would have lost the Baths long ago. I think that just from circumstance, previous experience and people having had enough has all added up to quite a militant little area. So hopefully we can build and
get our pool back for the local community and its many other users. There's great support but there isn't actually a guidebook which says you're at this stage in your campaign and this is how to set up a trust, it's all about learning. There's a lot of people willing to do that, for sure.
Breaking news
Since Govanhill Baths Trust's last meeting with Regeneration and Development Services, they have let them know that they are very keen to push through with the proposal from the Dixon Centre, and that at present they would not be looking at any other options!
If there are any architects / planners interested in assisting with the campaign, please contact Govanhill Baths Trust on: 07779995483.
"United we will swim!"