APPENDIX 46
Memorandum submitted by Mr Nick Juba,
National Swimming Team Coach at the University of Hertfordshire
Swimming Pool
I am writing to urge your Committee to support
plans to upgrade the pending swimming facility at the University
of Hertfordshire from 25 metres to 50 metres in length.
Great Britain desperately needs 50 metre swimming
pools to compete on equal terms with the rest of the world, and
the lack of them is clearly one of the prime reasons for our recent
poor performances on the world stage. Our top swimmers need to
be able to train in standard major event length swimming pools
in order to simulate race conditions.
It is clear that too many British swimmers train
"short-course" (that is in 25 metre pools or in other
odd shape lengths ie 33 metres, 36 yards etc), and are ill-prepared
for "long-course" events such as the Olympic Games or
the World Championships. This is a point continually reinforced
by Bill Sweetenham, Britain's National Performance Director, who
has been recruited from Australia where they have countless 50
metre pools. Sweetenham, and John Atkinson, the Director of World
Class Potential, are both huge supporters of the 50 metre project
at Hatfield.
London and the Home Counties are especially
ill-equipped for 50 metre pools. There are sub-standard and ageing
facilities at High Wycombe and Ealing, both of which are six lanes
in width and not the required eight lanes. Crystal Palace in the
south of the City is due for refurbishment at a date yet to be
agreed and is currently in decline. Nothing else is in the pipeline
for the immediate future in the London area despite aspirations
for the London Olympic bid.
The UH pool, by contrast, is due to start shortly
and be completed by the autumn of 2003. It would be a magnificent
facility on their new campus on the de Havilland site in Hatfield,
and would serve all aspects of the public domain—from local
community and roots requirements through to local clubs and elite
performance swimmers. It would equally serve swimming on a grander
scale by offering a wide and large population area a 50 metre
swimming facility. Currently there is no long-course swimming
pool between north London and Coventry, a vast area that covers
much of London, the Home Counties, the South Midlands and East
Anglia.
Hatfield is a particularly thriving swimming
area and the local club has a high National ranking. One of their
young swimmers, Vicky Cook, is the fastest 16 year-old swimmer
in the world and is heralded by Sweetenham as Britain's "star"
of the future. Another swimmer, Jody Cundy, is a triple Paralympic
Gold medallist and one of Britain's great heroes from the Sydney
Olympics.
To upgrade the UH pool would probably cost between
£2.5 and £3 million. At one stage Sport England offered
£1 million. It was never quite enough and we need now to
revisit and exert pressure on them urgently to try to secure that
extra funding. I am sure that with your support that this dream
might still become a reality.
9 December 2001
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