THERE are more than 700 people on the waiting list for swimming lessons in West Fife and an admission that the Carnegie Leisure Centre won't be able to cope if the pool at Inverkeithing High closes.
A Fife Council report said the Dunfermline site already has "capacity issues" every day of the week, with some clubs having to go to Glenrothes for pool time, and with the pool at the old Woodmill High having shut in the summer it would struggle to accommodate any more learners.
The cabinet committee will meet today (Thursday) to discuss options for the future of the Inverkeithing High site which includes The Wing, the community-use part of the school that includes a pool used by clubs and for swimming lessons 46 weeks of the year.
The report by Paul Vaughan, head of communities and neighbourhoods, stated: "With the dryside offerings at Woodmill community use moving to the Dunfermline Learning Campus, the main publicly provided and accessible wet facility in West Fife is Carnegie Leisure Centre.
"Carnegie is accommodating the Woodmill learn to swim scheme; however, it has limited capacity to support programming from Inverkeithing."
Mr Vaughan said there are 1,939 people attending learn to swim classes at the Carnegie and a waiting list with 421.
At Cowdenbeath - which closed in April for an £8 million, 14-month refurbishment - there are 462 learners who have been moved to the Bowhill pool and 68 on the waiting list.
Inverkeithing currently has 255 people learning to swim and 181 on the waiting list, and at Lochgelly there are 132 learners and 66 waiting for a place.
All four high schools in Dunfermline have benefited from new buildings since 2003, starting with Queen Anne, Dunfermline and now St Columba's and Woodmill, but all four have lost their pool as a result.
There are no high school pools left in the city, there is no swimming facility at the Dunfermline Learning Campus and there are currently no plans for a pool at the new £85m high school that's being built in Rosyth to replace Inverkeithing High.
David Barratt, the SNP councillor for Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, is backing the development of a new £28m sports hub that would include a new pool.
READ MORE: Fife Council have no plans for pools at new St Columba's or Woodmill schools
Some kind of swimming provision for the area seems imperative as Mr Vaughan's report underlined the current pressures at the main leisure centre on Dunfermline's Pilmuir Street.
"At Carnegie there is a capacity issue at peak times Monday to Friday, 4pm to 8.30pm and over the weekend.
"This is due to the demand from the following groups and activities: the largest learn-to-swim scheme within Fife; there are five aquatics clubs over three different disciplines requiring pool time - no other venue within Fife has as many aquatics groups using one venue; due to the growing population of West Fife, there is a growing demand for public swimming."
"With the above demand at Carnegie, there is no opportunity to offer any of the above groups or activities to develop beyond their current pool times.
"Fife Sports and Leisure Trust have been able to offer five aquatics clubs’ other opportunities for pool time, however, this is now outwith South and West Fife, with groups taking up pool time at the Michael Woods Centre in Glenrothes."
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