Highbury leisure centre pool ‘experiment’ axed as Islington Tribune helps pour oil on troubled waters

Published: 24th June, 2011
by PETER GRUNER

FOR a month, “pool-rage” broke out at a Highbury leisure centre, with swimmers kicking, thumping, scratching and splashing each other as they struggled to stay in their watery lanes.

But calm has descended on Highbury Pool following intervention this week by the Islington Tribune.

The problem at the Islington Council-run pool was blamed on an “experiment” by management to change three wide lanes into six narrow ones for the early-bird swimmers who arrive at 6.30am.

As a result, many elderly and disabled swimmers complained they had to stop swimming at the pool at Highbury Fields because of conflict in the lanes with other users.

Retired probation officer Wally Morgan, who campaigned against the change, thanked the Tribune for helping. “Without your support we may not have got them to change their minds,” he said.

Retired engineer Peter Goldfinger, 78, who is registered blind, had to give up swimming at the pool after 20 years. 

He said: “I’m a slow swimmer and obviously not always in control of the direction I take. 

“Under the old three-lanes system there was plenty of room for other swimmers to give me a wide berth. Due to the new scheme, people complained that there was no room to overtake me. Swimmers were hitting out and kicking. I’m sure it was mostly accidental, but it was very unpleasant.”

Retired teacher Hind Makiya-Vallis, 58, needs to swim for health reasons because she has heart problems and has suffered a brain haemorrhage. She said: “Many men swim like butterflies with arms splashing about and it was difficult to pass them in such narrow lanes. I’ve been bruised by fellow swimmers.”

Mr Morgan, from Beacon Hill, Holloway, said he couldn’t understand why there was a need to change a system that had worked so well for almost 30 years. He has been swimming at Highbury Pool since 1988 and until last month it has always been three wide lanes from opening time until around 9am, at which time the facility is divided between schools and public users.

Three lanes allow ample space, he said, for slow, medium and fast swimmers to go at their most comfortable pace and to pass others, when appropriate, without discomfort to either party.

Mr Morgan said: “Under the new arrangement, collisions seemed to happen with greater frequency. When two breaststrokers met, something had to give. When a backstroker went slightly off course, calamity could occur.”

He added: “One day I received an accidental punch on the head from a backstroker.”

A spokeswoman for the borough’s leisure service, Aquataria, said that the experiment for six lanes is now over. 

“We were reacting to the views of some users in the first place who wanted a change. Now we are back to the old system,” she said.