The strong tradition of swimming in York is in danger of being lost, according to a former city swimming star.

SWIMMING STARS: Scarcroft Secondary School's 1950 championship team featuring York swimmer Oliver Richardson, bottom left

Oliver Richardson, 64, was part of the 1950 Scarcroft School team that came second in the English Schools' Championships by just two-fifths of a second.

Mr Richardson, from Huntington Road, York, said: "I'm dead against this closure of the baths. It keeps kids off the street, it's good exercise and I think the council has really slipped up."

He said that he would go swimming at St George's Baths, York, as often as three times a week, with the school and on his own.

He said: "Then it was the thing to get every school swimming because of the two rivers.

"I have two grandsons who go to Haxby Road School and there is nothing in the curriculum for them about swimming."

And consultant surgeon Geoffrey Hope, who says he has used the pools, principally Yearsley, for the last 26 years, said: "I cannot believe that, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the people of York are being asked to choose between libraries, museums and swimming pools, especially when we are being given no facts on which to base a decision.

"In a civilised society all of these leisure facilities must flourish and be invested in for our intellectual and physical well-being. I request we be given the facts and the figures on which the major decisions are being made and what other options are open to the rate-payers of York and North Yorkshire."

Mr Hope, who sent in photographs of Yearsley Pool taken by German teacher John Caley at Archbishop Holgate's Grammar School's swimming galas in the 1950s, says there should be a programme of investment in the city's pools, followed by effective marketing to schools, industry and local people "to improve the funding to the council and the health and well-being of the people of York".

See Save Our Swim section

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