Pool floor to be replaced

Plans to replace a slippy swimming pool floor have been backed by councillors.

Slippy floors throughout parts of Perdiswell Leisure Centre in Worcester are said to be of “questionable” quality and have been an issue since opening in 2017.

Worcester City Council’s policy and resources committee approved plans to close the pool for several weeks to allow for the tiles to be replaced.

Replacing the surface around the swimming pool and changing rooms is expected to cost more than £180,000 with a claim for loss of income during the closure expected to rise to as much as £120,000.

The work is expected to take around three months between October and December with the pool closed for at least two-to-three weeks.

The city council’s deputy director of governance Sian Stroud said the tiles passed safety tests when they were first installed and whilst the slippy floor an “ongoing issue” it was not a “major safety concern.”

“We procured tiles that met the industry standards and the health and safety executive standard,” she told the council’s policy and resources committee at a meeting in the Guildhall on Tuesday (June 8).

“There is only definitive standard for tile slipperiness. In good faith, both the council and its appointed contractors procured a tile that met the standards, but the experience has been that it is not a satisfactory standard.”

She added that the number of complaints about the floor had been “more than is desirable but not more than is possibly anomalous.”

“We have not been receiving reports of concerns on a significant scale and we have only had one serious injury reported,” she said. “We have an ongoing issue that our customers don’t think is tolerable as opposed to a ‘red’ on the health and safety risk register.”