OUR athletes compete against the rest of the world, they should not have to compete against the rest of us and local authorities for adequate training facilities.

No wonder Britain failed in swimming events, just look at the facilities we provide to encourage them.

The recent closure of Barbican swimming pool is due entirely to a lack of re-investment in the up-keep of a decent pool for York.

I bet our Lord Mayor would put on her 'posh frock' to welcome home a gold medalist for swimming - that would really put York on the map.

Pamela Eagan,

The White House,

North Lane,

Malton Road, York.

...I WAS surprised to see mentioned in the Press on two occasions the statement that it was intended to spend £2 million on the Barbican swimming pool.

Surely rather than throw good money after bad it would be better to demolish the existing swimming complex, and start again?

The Barbican swimming complex was always liable to be a disastrous waste of money, when, before it was built, the architect stated in your paper that his main concern was the appearance of the building when seen from the City walls. The whole complex is a glaring example of architecture that puts the appearance of the building a long way before suitability for purpose, and an even longer way before judicious use of the ratepayer's money.

Firstly, the pyramid-shaped roof just does not suit the normal swimming pool arrangement which requires that a pool should have a deep end, with diving facilities. Whichever way one places a pool in a pyramid the ends are going to be under the low eaves. The result was that the architect decided to provide a completely separate diving pool in a sort of miniature 'Chapter House' tacked on to one side of the pyramid. Not many people know it is there, as it is never ever used.

As for the so-called 'main pool', while it now has a useless deep end, it also has a useless shallow end which is so shallow that it is impossible to do any sort of crawl stroke without hitting the bottom and a race turn is out of the question. As a result, serious training for competitions has to take place in the 'training pool'. However, the real purpose of the 'training pool' is to provide training facilities out of the way of people in the main pool who are already proficient swimmers.

Sadly, the only facilities by the training pool for parents and others wanting to watch the children learning to swim are benches in a corner where those seated can hardly see anything of the pool, and which, in any case, can only accommodate a dozen or so.

Would it not be better to just do the minimum repair work and then seek Lottery aid to ultimately replace the existing disaster with a first-class set up, not necessarily on the same site.

My comments only refer to the pools complex and not to the concert hall and other accommodation that were added years later.

J R Richards,

Deramore Drive,

Badger Hill,

York.