Council chiefs have agreed to fund repairs totalling almost £1.2m to reopen Richmond Swimming Pool — but have warned the public they need to use the facility or risk losing it in the future.

Members of North Yorkshire Council’s executive committee today approved the work to fix the ceiling after it partially collapsed in April.

The meeting heard that, as well as the capital expenditure for the repairs, the venue was expected to cost the authority more than £400,000 in subsidy during the current financial year.

Deputy leader Gareth Dadd said he backed the proposal but said he found the expenditure “difficult to justify” given the council’s challenging financial position. “I’m happy to support it on this occasion, but it’s still hard to justify when you bear in mind the overall financial risk this authority faces.  This is a non-statutory service. It will come down to a decision for future authorities I’m sure, post-2027 (local elections), whether the subsidy, if it hasn’t been substantially reduced, can continue to be justified.  So the message is that we’ve got to do our bit by working with the user groups and the community to try and get that patronage increased but so has the community.”

Cllr Dadd said that as well as the military-owned pool in Catterick Garrison, there was another council-owned pool 12 miles away from Richmond in Bedale, while residents of other towns, including Easingwold, had to travel further to use a pool. “I’ve got to give a very, very strong warning about the future ability of this authority to make such positive decisions going forward,” he added.

The meeting heard from Richmond pool users who urged the council to invest the money in the facility.

Councillor Simon Myers, executive member for culture, arts and housing, proposed that the committee vote in favour of the work, despite the centre being one of the county’s less well-used leisure centres.  He said: “It seemed that right before we committed to spending money, we did a proper options appraisal to see what could be done, what needed to be spent, what the options were and take the views of the residents of Richmond.  And we’d done that and it seems to me that when one considers the various options, the best one in terms of delivering our health, leisure and well-being strategy across  North Yorkshire is to reopen this pool, to spend the money we need to make it properly operational.”

The work is expected to take six months to complete, with the pool due to reopen in the first half of next year.