Why Alpamare in Scarborough was always doomed - Yorkshire Post Letters

It was with great sadness, but not with surprise, that I read this week about Scarborough’s Alpamare going into administration.

From the outset it has been clear to many that the project wasn’t based on either realistic attendance figures or financial robustness.

For a company to instigate such a sizable project but have significantly less than the £14m needed should have immediately rung alarm bells with Scarborough councillors who were being asked to lend the company a massive £9m of this.

To predict 500,000 visitors annually i.e. 10,000 per week, every week, is just not realistic especially as the permanent residents of Scarborough were given no financial concessions to encourage them to visit Alpermare.

After the last ‘temporary’ closure I wrote to the manager of Alpermare suggesting that local people would perhaps make frequent use of the facilities and thus bring in revenue if they could buy a concessionary admission ticket, possibly to use over a month rather than over just one day.

For example an individual could have four half hour swimming sessions each month. Unsurprisingly I received no response.

It sadly seems that now the north side of Scarborough will be once again left without ready access to a swimming pool and that residents will continue to be obliged to travel across the town to use the (albeit excellent) facilities at the sports village.

Finally it seems likely that the long suffering locals may well be asked to cover this huge debt through increases to their council tax. Not a good prospect?