Over recent years and months Labour councillors have lamented the lack of swimming facilities in the city.

Yet now a proposal has been put forward to build a competition-standard pool, suitable for the general public and the city’s elite swimmers, they are finding reasons to raise objections (Funding row over uni pool, The Press, May 28).

The proposed deal would see City of York Council contribute £3m to the construction of a pool costing in the region of £9m. The university would also take responsibility for maintaining and running the pool over a 25-year agreement.

So alongside contributing £6m to the construction of the pool, it will contribute many millions of pounds more to the upkeep and management of the pool, as well as providing the land for free. James Alexander claims the £3m would be better spent on kick-starting a city-centre pool.

Quite how he expects to build a pool (costing at least £9m), purchase the land (or write off income expected from selling the land) and maintain and manage the pool with £3m I am not sure. The only realistic way new facilities will be built in the city for many years will be through partnerships where organisations can pool their resources to make them go further than they ever could by working alone.

RJ Williams, Brinkworth Terrace, York.