We hope you have had as enjoyable Christmas as possible this year and that you have kept well. To those of you who have been working in essential services through the holiday period – thank you.
Earlier this month we asked members their views about continuing to campaign against the new charges at the bathing ponds, receiving a clear response that campaigning should continue. In particular there was strong opposition to any steep price rises which might occur in the next financial year. That has already been hinted at heavily by the City of London in recent committee meetings, and early in the New Year we expect to hear of their proposals for ticket prices in 2021/22.
The City of London has also indicated that it will not be consulting formally with the swimmers’ associations about those price rises, only being prepared to receive comments from us by email. Following our experiences in early 2020 we are already familiar with the City of London’s unwillingness to listen to Heath users.
In order to be prepared for this, we are asking members to complete a short survey to let us know what the impact has been of the current ticket prices. You have already made it clear that we should campaign against future price rises. Here we are gathering hard evidence of the impact so far of the ticket prices, and the economic effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on our swimming community.
This survey will run until midday on Sunday 17 January 2021 and can be completed entirely anonymously. We are requesting specific information about financial impacts and at the end there is an option to provide contact details if you are willing to discuss your response further. The survey also includes questions about equality and diversity to help us to assess the impact across the wider swimming community, and potential examples of discrimination occurring.
We will be sharing this survey link with the other swimmers’ associations and beyond. Please feel free to forward this link to any swimmers who you think might be interested, including those who no longer feel able to use the ponds due to the new charges.