Castletown Commissioners are backing a new sports centre – including an Olympic-sized swimming pool – at King William’s College and criticised the Southern Swimming Pool Board.

It comes as the authority’s deputy chairman Jerry Ludford-Brooks is seeking backing for the government to introduce an island-wide swimming pool charge.

In a submission to the planning appeal, Castletown Commissioners called the Swimming Pool Board – which runs the current pool in Castletown – an ‘unelected body which is working beyond its stated scope’ and labelled its appeal ‘vexatious’.

The KWC sports centre has been granted planning permission in principle.

But, as this week’s Examiner reported, the Southern Swimming Pool Board successfully bid to have that planning permission reviewed.

The board sought an appeal, saying that the centre and its swimming pool were outside the boundaries of Castletown, were within the setting of a registered building, that the scale of the building would impact its surroundings and it was unclear what its purpose was.

However, following this, Castletown Commissioners, which has a member on the pool board, wrote to the Cabinet Office, which handles planning appeals, to accuse the pool board of acting beyond its remit.

The letter said: ‘It is somewhat perverse that the land owner on which this application stands has not been afforded interested party status, yet the Planning and Building Control Directorate has seen fit to offer interested party status to an unelected body which is working beyond its stated scope of the functions of the board under the Southern Swimming Pool Board Order 2000.’

Addressing the issues raised by the pool board, the local authority said: ‘Whilst the site is outside the arbitrary boundary as shown on the 2012 Southern Area Plan document, the plan is clear that this is the “Main Settlement Boundary”.

‘The appeal seeks to distort phraseology and there are a number of residential properties and buildings and land for Civic Cultural and Other uses as defined in the plan.’

Turning to the issue of KWC being a registered building, the commissioners said that there were ‘in excess of 60 registered buildings in Castletown and the rigid view taken by the appellant [the pool board] would effectively prevent any inward investment in the town and turn it into a living museum’.

The local authority added: ‘Indeed the proximity to registered buildings has not prevented the adoption of a permitted development order and building of the hangar for the private jet centre in close proximity to King William’s College.

‘The applicant was quite clear at the planning committee that the method of construction would allow the removal of the structure in the event that it ceased to be utilised and this should be taken into account.

‘Many of the arguments being put forward by the appellant would appear to preclude the redevelopment of their own facility at a later date owing to its proximity to the Witches Mill (Registered Building 76).

‘One would suspect that they will not raise similar objections should such an application materialise and only serve to highlight the vexatious nature of this appeal.’

The commissioners also confirmed that the board remained ‘wholly supportive’ of the redevelopment of the southern community pool but that the potential redevelopment of the public pool ‘should not prevent charitable bodies from seeking to bring inward investment into Castletown’.

In a separate development, the deputy chairman of Castletown Commissioners, Jerry Ludford-Brooks, is due to move a motion at the local authority’s meeting next month to call on the government to introduce an all-island pool levy.

The motion reads: Now that government and Tynwald have agreed to the provisions of the Swimming Pool Orders that only apply to some regions of the island, that the Regional Swimming Pool rate charge can be increased up to 8p in the pound in the following years, and that the charge only applied to the regional local authorities, that the commissioners write to the chief minister to urgently request that government now considered the introduction at an early date of an “all-island household swimming pool charge” to replace the present rate system charge and that such charge be included in the annual rates bill applicable to each household.’

Mr Lurford-Brooks pointed to an issue of a lack of fairness in the current system whereby residents in the east, such as Onchan, Braddan and Douglas, do not pay towards community pools in their rates because of the location of the National Sports Centre.

Unlike residents in these areas, islanders living in the north, west and south in effect pay twice towards swimming facilities, both through their rates which contribute to regional boards and through taxes which go to fund the NSC from central government.

Mr Lurford-Brooks said: ‘Onchan, Douglas and Braddan pay nothing for swimming pools at all and there should be an overall swimming pool levy. I have had contact with Douglas and they said they don’t pay because they provided the land for the NSC.

‘This is ridiculous because they also got rid of Summerland at that time because of the upkeep of it and Douglas still gets the rates from the NSC.

‘I think it’s totally unfair that the [regional] local authorities have to spend all of this money on it and yet three of the biggest local authorities pay nothing at all.’

Mr Lurford-Brooks said that while he hopes the review into the island’s swimming pools will include a look at the current financing situation, he ‘won’t hold his breath’.

He added: ‘I sent a statement to all members before it went to Tynwald and they all voted for it. I don’t believe MHKs are looking after constituents, especially in the south.’

The deputy chairman also said that he has no issues ‘in principle’ with the proposed pool at King William’s College, but that it cannot come at the cost of the community losing its own pool, which he said should be built as part of the new school development.

‘I haven’t got a problem really with the pool at King Bill’s, whether it happens or not remains to be seen, but you need a community pool,’ he said.

‘Nobody could ever say that a pool at King William’s College could be a community pool because it will be run by a charity and they will need to make a profit if possible or at least break even whereas at the moment the community pools have a deficiency which is covered by government.

‘I can’t see it ever working, but that is up to the board who are doing King Bill’s to sort out. But what will really annoy me is if the government puts public money into the pool at King Bill’s to the detriment of the one at Castletown.’

In a recent Tynwald question, from Speaker Juan Watterson, which asked about whether public money was earmarked for the scheme, Treasury Minister Dr Alex Allinson said there is ‘no money included in the Pink Book for a swimming pool at King William’s College’.

However, the minister went on to say: ‘It is difficult to state if Tynwald approval would be required for any such application. It would depend on the nature of the application and the vires or other powers proposed to be used to authorise.’