Huge community effort sees Westray pool reopen

The Westray Swimming Pool will reopen in January for the first time since the pandemic, with a special open day for the community on 7 January organised by the Westray Community Association.

“This is a massive achievement by the local community,” says Garry Burton, Leisure and Culture Service Manager for Orkney Islands Council, whose service maintains each of Orkney’s isles pools.

“While the Council provides and maintains the pool facilities on the isles, day-to-day operation is thanks to the immense voluntary efforts of the isles’ Community Associations and other volunteers on the islands.

“A huge amount of work goes into this aspect - without the dedication of the Westray Community Association and everyone who supports them, we simply would not be in the fantastic position of finally being able to reopen the pool in coming weeks.”

All pools and leisure facilities in Orkney shut down with the first lockdown in March 2020. While many facilities reopened swiftly as restrictions eased, isles swimming pools faced particular challenges, including high demand for specialist contractors to carry out repairs and maintenance, and ensuring the appropriate levels of trained staff/volunteers, such as lifeguards, are in place.

Added to this, the pool in Westray suffered an unfortunate run of mechanical failures, and storm damage to the ceiling.

To allow the pool to reopen previous lifeguards have been retrained with the focus now on recruiting, training and assessing new lifeguards from across the community.

Garry Burton adds: “We’d urge folk in the isles to please consider whether or not they could become a volunteer lifeguard, or even undertake the training to become a Trainer Assessor, thereby increasing the pool of people communities can call on to help keep their pools staffed and open.

“Anyone with an interest in this role to help their community ensure the pools are fully operational should get in touch with their respective Community Association.”

Councillor Gwenda Shearer is Chair of the Council’s Education, Leisure and Housing Committee: “What a fabulous start to the new year for Westray and Papay too. We hope the open day is well supported and that folks also remember to make a splash about the huge community spirit involved in getting the pool reopened.”

Steven Drever is Chair of the Westray Community Association. He said: “I think the entire island will agree that it’s fantastic to see the swimming pool reopen!

“The pool is one of those things that we tend to take for granted and we rarely think about the hard work that goes into keeping it open.

“I’d like to say a massive thank you to our lifeguards - ‘The Fantastic Four’, Caroline Kent, Rebecca Wilson, Lena Pottinger and Chloe Sandison. Post Covid, and considering they all have full time jobs, I’m sure they’d all of had other things they would’ve preferred to be doing rather than retraining as lifeguards for the benefit of so many of us!

“I’d also like to thank Edith, Kim, Paul, Garry, Kerry and everyone else at OIC who have helped to make this possible.”