Council 'looking for ways' to extend Abingdon lido's season
A local authority has said it is looking for ways to extended the period of time an outdoor swimming pool is open for, after facing criticism.The Abbey Meadows outdoor pool, in Abingdon, is not due to reopen until 19 July - and will remain open for the duration of the school summer holidays.Vale of Wight Horse District Council, which runs the facility, said running it was "expensive", meaning it needed to be "careful" about how long it stays open.The pool had been at risk of closure in 2015 - but reopened in 2018 after a £1.3m refurbishment.
Naomi Richardson, who campaigned to get the pool revamped, previously told the BBC: "I think we can say that it's disappointing - that would be an understatement."I feel very frustrated about the potential that is being wasted, both for the town as a whole and the opportunities that are being denied people to enjoy the facility."In a statement, the council said: "We're looking for ways to lower costs and hope to extend the season in the future."It's important to be careful and to remain within our operating budget so we can continue to open this popular site during the busy summer months, whilst also continuing to support other important services and our most vulnerable residents."In total, the pool will be open for six weeks over the summer holidays. An adjacent splashpad has already reopened.Unlike Abbey Meadows, most of Oxfordshire's lido's have already reopened to coincide with the unseasonal dry and warm weather.Banbury's Woodgreen pool and Wallingford's Riverside pool both opened last week, while Hinksey outdoor pool in Oxford reopened at the start of April.
You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
20 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Fiddler on the Roof: The glorious revival moves indoors, and loses the wow factor
Fresh from winning three Olivier awards, Jordan Fein's superb Regent's Park revival of Fiddler on the Roof has been transplanted to form the big summer musical offering at the Barbican. Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein's instant 1964 Broadway classic about a toiling shtetl milkman contending with five daughters and a world in transition at the turn of the 20th century always does a roaring trade, but this loving iteration merits packed houses. Even so, I was also left wishing I'd caught the production at Regent's Park Open Air theatre last August. The alfresco setting clearly augmented the portrait of a Jewish community not snugly self-contained but vulnerable to the elements as well as brutish Russians. The dominant image of Tom Scutt's design is of wheat fields; indeed the evening memorably opens not with a fiddler on a roof but a fiddler (the talented, spectral Raphael Papo) atop a rising cross-section of burgeoning wheat field that forms an ominous canopy. That exquisite number late in Act One – Sunrise, Sunset – in which the locals gather to celebrate the marriage of Tzeitel (the milkman Tevye's eldest daughter) to the diffident tailor Motel, last year magically coincided with nightfall itself. Presented here amid candlelit gloom, the song still carries a spine-tingling charge. The pair have broken with tradition in seeking a love match (the days are hence numbered for Beverley Klein's tireless matchmaker Yente). The wistful ritualistic mood around them affirms vast cycles of nature. So even if the earthiness for which this incarnation was celebrated is less in evidence now, that's no reason to kvetch about the experience overall. Compared with his co-directing work on the recent stripped-back Oklahoma!, Fein privileges emotional truth over experimentation, the imperishable score rendered with musical heft and folksy simplicity, the lighting beautiful without being self-advertising. Julia Cheng's choreography, particularly in the famous bottle-balancing dance sequence, replete with precise, angular, sweeping leg moves, is a joy. Adam Dannheisser's commanding performance as Tevye is of a piece with this confident restraint. No actor can eclipse the ebullient memory of Zero Mostel or Topol and this American actor gives us instead a figure of grounded ordinariness and even surprising level-headedness. He has comic value, but he doesn't aim it at the gallery; when he sings If I Were a Rich Man, the village looks on, half amused, half sharing the dream too. He's an everyday father repeatedly tested by demands for independence by his daughters. (Natasha Jules Bernard, Hannah Bristow and Georgia Bruce are contrastingly spirited as the main three, Tzeitel, Chava and Hodel). Of course, there is a grim frisson – and a topical one – to the vision of collective displacement in the second half, but what resonates most is Tevye's agonised attempt to reconcile his paternal care with his devotion to his people, and his stern God. At a time of cultural upheaval, of daily concerns about what we must fight for, and discard, that hits home.
Daily Mail
28 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Folly of funny money deals: A market solution would be best for Thames Water, says ALEX BRUMMER
As a long-standing critic of private equity pillage, I should be cheering from the rooftops at the decision by KKR to pull out of its proposed rescue of Thames Water. Yet given the ghastly legacy of financial ownership and the hopelessness of the Starmer Government on commercial decisions, KKR almost looked like a white knight. The pledge by the global investment firm to inject £4billion of equity to stabilise the balance sheet of Britain's biggest water utility, and to return the company to the stock exchange in ten years, was as good an option as this ill-fated company was likely to receive. For KKR to get the deal done it required various forces to be aligned. The management of Thames, the existing creditors, the regulator Ofwat, the Government and the political background. Each time a pact with one party looked attainable, another problem arose. Down the decades, KKR deservedly has taken political punishment for its alleged profiteering at the expense of shareholders, customers, and other stakeholders. The original 'Barbarians at the Gate', dating from its deal for RJR Nabisco back in 1988, it has a history of plunder. Its ownership of Toys R Us ended in the bankruptcy courts. In more recent times, the Wall Street group has focused on long-term investment through infrastructure. This was the mechanism proposed by Thames Water. When the proposition was put to KKR's global investment committee by its British and European principals, it received the thumbs down. Fear of the opprobrium, which came recently from the Commons when MPs tore into potential bonus arrangements and sewage discharges, played a role in the decision to pull out. It was serendipity that KKR's decision emerged on the day that former Bank of England deputy-governor Sir Jon Cunliffe produced his report on the water industry. He found 'deep-rooted systemic' problems and argued for a 'fundamental reset'. Of all the regulators designed to patrol key utilities post privatisation, Ofwat has been the most useless. None of the water utilities deserve credit for their record on keeping the nation's beaches and waterways free of sewage and industrial waste. There are clear differences between the performance of providers such as United Utilities and Severn Trent, which have remained listed companies, and those which were sold to rapacious financiers. Thames and Southern Water are the most notorious examples. In both cases, equity finance was largely replaced by leverage, borrowing and debts, and the lifeblood was sucked out of the enterprises by interest payments and dividends. These often were paid to entities in offshore tax havens. Putting water to one side for a moment, that is what is so frustrating about the recent sale of the Royal Mail-owner International Distribution Services to a financial buyer, Daniel Kretinsky. The only hope for that deal is Ofcom, which has a far better reputation as a regulator. Nevertheless, one suspects the Universal Service Obligation, and a reasonably priced first-class post, are not the priorities of the buyer. The Labour Government was played by Kretinsky in much the same way as it was forced into an expensive rescue of Chinese-owned British Steel. Any notion that Thames Water would be better run as a nationalised industry needs to be disabused. It took 17 years for the Treasury to free itself from ownership of NatWest. A market solution must be the best approach. Otherwise, a bloated government balance sheet will be burdened with this spoilt asset for decades. Red card The love affair of US entrepreneurs, private equity and showbiz for Premier League football is not simply admiration for the beautiful game. The American tax code allows owners of professional teams to write off the entire value of players as 'intangible assets' against tax. If the House of Representatives' tax plan eventually receives assent, future owners (who are taxed on worldwide income) will lose this advantage. The impact on the value of sports franchises, on both sides of the Atlantic, could potentially be catastrophic.
Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
KKR abandons £4bn rescue of Thames Water: Nationalisation now looms for debt-ridden firm
Thames Water's future is in doubt after a US private equity giant abandoned a £4billion rescue plan. KKR walked away from the investment deal, partly due to growing concerns over political interference from the Labour Government. The decision is a major setback for the debt-riddled utility firm's scramble to avoid nationalisation. Environment Secretary Steve Reed said the Government was 'keeping a close eye' on the situation and is ready for 'any eventuality', which could include a taxpayer-funded bailout. But Thames Water – which is struggling under £20billion of debt – refused to confirm whether it would scrap executive bonuses despite the fresh financial hurdles. Only last week, industry regulator Ofwat fined the firm a record £123million for sewage spills and paying 'undeserved' dividends to shareholders. New York-based KKR had been chosen as the UK's biggest water supplier's so-called preferred partner in March. Bosses last year launched a search for a buyer after its former owners, including pension and sovereign wealth funds, said the company was 'uninvestable' – plunging the debt-laden firm into crisis. But after completing due diligence checks, KKR said it 'will not be in a position to proceed' with the takeover. The buyout firm was worried about potential future policy changes that could impact the running of the company. Tough government rhetoric over the water industry also spooked the firm, reports said. Thames Water yesterday stated it will hold talks with Ofwat and other stakeholders over a backup turnaround plan devised by its senior creditors. Chairman Sir Adrian Montague said KKR's decision was 'disappointing'. He added: 'We continue to believe that a sustainable recapitalisation of the company is in the best interests of all stakeholders and continue to work with our creditors and stakeholders to achieve that.' However, it fuelled fears that the Government may be forced to take control of Thames Water, which serves 16m households in London and the South East. Reed told LBC Radio yesterday that 'Thames itself remains stable'. But MPs on the Environment Select Committee, which last month grilled the utility's bosses over plans to pay themselves huge bonuses, sounded the alarm over the future of Thames Water. Chairman Alistair Carmichael said: 'In May we raised concerns that Thames had only pursued one bidder at an early stage for its takeover bid, against the wishes of Ofwat, and highlighted the risks this could pose if KKR chose not to proceed. Unfortunately our concerns have been realised, putting Thames in a perilous position.' A company spokesman refused to confirm whether the payout proposals would be scrapped entirely after the KKR deal collapsed. South West Water owner plunges South West Water's owner reported widening losses following a parasite outbreak in Devon – while hiking water bills this year would help fund its £3.2billion investment plans. Pennon reported a pre-tax loss of £72.7million for the year to the end of March, widening from the £9.1million loss reported last year. Last year's incident in Brixham cost it about £21million, pushing it deeper into an annual loss, a spokesman said. An outbreak of cryptosporidium – a parasite that causes infection – in the water supply left some in hospital. More than 100 others reported symptoms including diarrhoea. Bills for South West Water customers rose by 28 per cent on average from April. Pennon said the rise would help fund around a third of its investments.
