Recent News

• Jan 18, 2024 BBC: Sundorne pool plan is 'death knell' for Shrewsbury's Quarry facility
• Jan 16, 2024 Here we go again! New Sundorne pool proposals.
• Jan 28, 2023 Unforseen delays result in setback for reopening of main pool
• Apr 27, 2022 Whitchurch Pool to be replaced ... in 2025?
• Apr 19, 2022 Another year, another "pause" - Whitchurch wins over the Quarry & Sundorne
• Jan 5, 2022 Proposals for new £10m pool at Sundorne ahead of Quarry rebuild
• May 24, 2021 Questions to the new Shropshire Council Leisure portfolio holder
• Dec 14, 2020 Shropshire Council Cabinet meeting 14/12/20

Other news

Latest Proposal

Welcome to 2024 and the latest proposal by Shropshire Council to build a new pool facility at Sundorne! The new facility will have an 8-lane 25m competition pool and a smaller 17m pool with moving floor, suited for leisure and teaching kids to swim.

Whilst this all looks and sounds great, we still believe this won't meet the current needs of the public or the clubs that presently use the Quarry swimming pools, and make access to the facilities via public transport, or walking/cycling, much more limited.

This latest proposal has come of of the blue with, to our knowledge, little or no consultation with us or any of the clubs that use the pools.

The Quarry Forum, whom campaign to keep swimming facilities in the town centre, hope to get more engagement with the Council before they make a final decision that we feel ultimately will be detrimental to the town, will offer less facilities for the numerous clubs and groups that use the existing baths, and make access for many users much more limited.

More here:

• Shrewsbury Sports Village Transformation – Proposals for new fitness and pool facilities at Sundorne (SC, Jan 2024)
• Sports Village Transformation (SC, Jan 2024)
• Shrewsbury Quarry pool redevelopment plans ‘unaffordable’ as Sports Village site favoured (Shropshire Star, 11/01/24)
• Town could live to regret moving swimming from the quarry baths (Shropshire Star, 7/12/2020)

What's at Stake?

Significant loss of swimming facilities from the heart of Shrewsbury.

The majority of the people of Shrewsbury (68% according to the Council's survey) want the swimming pool to be kept at the heart of the Town Centre. Town businesses, the Town Council and other organisations are all in favour of this too. Until recently, Shropshire Council have their own ideas and and had simply ignored the public and businesses and instead proposed to move it out of town up to Sundorne. We all believe that would make it harder for the majority of people to get to and we simply did not believe the Council's figures and justification for that move. We pressed them hard to get a proper independent cost-benefit analysis done but kept hitting a brick wall.

However, thanks to this campaign, we managed to delay the Council's decision, get the Town Council and BID on board and have now finally got the Council to listen.

Who Are We?

This website is run by the Quarry Swimming and Fitness Forum. We are a group of users and supports of the Quarry Swimming and Fitness Centre, set up to campaign for keeping the swimming baths in the centre of town where it is most accessible. In addition to a lot of discussions with the Council and other groups we have also ran two very well supported protest marches through the town. Our campaign has also been covered by BBC Midlands, BBC Radio Shropshire, Shropshire Star amongst others. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

There are other ways you can help too - we still need you to write to your Shropshire councillor and our MP, write letters to the paper, put up posters, etc. The fight is not over yet!.