Labour Government 'free swimming' sham exposed

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 16th Sep 2008

Sheffield's Liberal Democrat Council have hit out at the Labour Government after discovering the 'free swimming' pledge for under 16's and over 60's is a sham. Government funding available for the 'free swimming' initiative in Sheffield falls way short of what is required. The Labour Government have only offered approximately £370K of the total £1.1m that Sheffield's swimming pools could need to find in lost revenue. This would leave local taxpayers facing a £727K bill, an extra 0.5% in Council Tax.

Due to this unacceptable cost to local taxpayers, the Liberal Democrat Council has decided not to enter into the scheme. Instead the Council has written to the Government asking them to reconsider the amount of funding they are offering to Sheffield.

Councillor Sylvia Dunkley, Liberal Democrat Cabinet member for Culture, Leisure and Streetscene said: -

"At the time I welcomed the announcement that the Government would fund free swimming for under 16's and over 60's. However now we have had time to look at the detail we can see that the initiative is simply another Labour sham."

"We have found that the amount of funding the Government is offering Sheffield falls way short of the sum that would be needed. If we accepted the Government's offer it could still cost the Council nearly three quarters of a million pounds. At a time when local people are feeling the pinch we cannot justify the increase in Council Tax that would be needed to pay for this."

"We have written to the Government to ask them to honour their commitment and provide Sheffield with the full amount of funding, if they do then we would be delighted to introduce the free swimming initiative. In the meantime we are looking at what else we can do to make swimming more attractive to local people."