Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 03 October 1930

Mexborough Baths to Cost £18,000.

There is a definite prospect at last that Mexborough is to have its own swimming baths. During the last nine months a committee set up by the Urban Council with Mr. J. E. Cliff as chairman, has been inquiring into ways and means.

Their work is now taking shape and it is hoped that within the next month or so a scheme, involving au expenditure of about £18,000, will be submitted. Plans are being prepared by the Surveyor, Mr. G. F. Carter.

In an interview Mr. Cliff explained the scheme to a “Times” reporter. “We have a splendid site in Leach Lane, a central position at the rear of the police station. That land was purchased twenty years ago for the purpose of erecting swimming baths. Just before the war, we accepted a tender of about £6,000 by Mr. G. H. Smith, of Mexborough, for the building of baths, but the war intervened and the scheme was abandoned. At one period after the war there was some talk of Swinton and Mexborough joining in a scheme, but during the last nine months, a special committee has been hard at work on a scheme for Mexborough alone.

The help of the Minister of Health was sought, who is favourable, and it is on his advice that we are now pushing forward plane. The committee has had several offers of loans, and in some cases the loans are practically gifts. If the scheme goes forward—and we mean it to—there will be a public inquiry but that will be only a matter of form. We do not expect the slightest opposition because it has been very evident for some years that the residents desire swimming baths.

The committee is not concerned as to whether the baths will be profitable; they consider them necessary for the health of the town. Baths are about the only thing that Mexborough has hesitated over, and really it has not been the Council’s fault. First the war put a stop to our scheme and then we were hampered with a shortage of water. We hope to receive financial support from the Unemployment Grants Committee and the West Riding County Council, who are at present involved in a good deal of expense in sending Mexborough children to swimming bathe at Denaby, Wath, and Rawmarsh.”‘

Although the present scheme is more ambitious, the plans agreed on for the 1914 scheme are being used as a basis. The baths hall will have an imposing frontage with two entrances, one for either sex, and there will be slipper baths for ladies and gentlemen. The swimming bath itself will probably be 70 feet long by 25 feet, and a depth ranging from 3ft. 6in. to 6ft. 6in.

A feature is to be the installation of a modern filtration plant whereby the water in the bath can be used for a year or so, being filtered at short periods. It is proposed that the hall be fitted so that during the winter months it can be used for social engagements and public meetings.

The building will cover only half the land available in Leech Lane, and it is understood that later the remaining portion of the site will be laid out as gardens.