Glenalbyn Swimming Pool campaign to present petition to council

LOCAL residents are planning on presenting a petition to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council calling for the reopening of Glenalbyn Swimming Pool in Stillorgan, nearly eight years after it shut.

The group, called Friends of Glenalbyn, has been campaigning for the reopening of the pool ever since its closure in 2013.

Its online petition has garnered over 1,200 signatures at the time of writing.

“This is one of many petitions signed by the people of Stillorgan and surrounding areas for the redevelopment and reopening of Glenalbyn swimming pool,” says the group.

“Will we need to protest DLR again or boycott Glenalbyn? Let’s hope not.”

The group says that over the past year or so they have had “zero communication from any local councillor, TD, or elected Minster regarding progress.

“This is unacceptable as far as we are concerned.”

Over the past few years the group has organised protests and demonstrations outside of the swimming pool, calling for its reopening.

Local Independent councillor Deirdre Donnelly said that the delay in progress has been detrimental to the community.

“The pool closed back in 2013 and like many residents in the Stillorgan and surrounding areas we had hoped to see its re-opening long before now.

“I am deeply saddened that there appears to have been little progress on this over the last year.

“I do take on board that the current circumstances have meant less meetings, but the delay overall is unacceptable,” she says.

“A mediator was appointed a few years back to work with both parties, but we were not kept updated on their progress.”

The swimming pool is located on the grounds of Kilmacud Crokes GAA Club and a mediation process between all stakeholders was reportedly finalized in early 2020.

However, little progress has been made on the project since.

In June 2020, the Department of Sport rejected the council’s application for partial funding for the development through the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF).

In response to Fine Gael councillor John Kennedy, the local authority said that “the Department advised that the standard of applications was very high and given the level of demand and the amount of funding available under the LSSIF program, it was only possible to allocate a grant to the top 19% of applications by assessment score.

“The LSSIF funding also prioritized projects that were multi-functional in nature and cater for a number of sports and other activities,” the council said.

Donnelly says that the closure of the pool “has affected sports clubs and other organisations including special needs groups in the area.

“This however goes beyond the sporting element.

“There are so many health benefits from swimming and water-based exercise and many users are often unable to engage in any other kind of fitness activity.

“Swimming is both an enjoyable and for some a competitive sport, but emphasis should be placed on the fact that it is also a basic life skill,” she said.

“Every month I see more and more large-scale planning applications submitted for developments which will see a substantial population growth in the Stillorgan area and its surroundings.

“We need a pool now more than ever,” she says.

“I have had a motion on the council monthly meeting agenda for some time and appear to be getting the same response.

“I look forward to this being discussed at the next meeting because there are a lot of questions I would like to see answered.”