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Moray Council’s Leader, Cllr Graham Leadbitter, says the first week’s response to the Council’s ‘Use it or Lose it’ campaign to get the public signed up to the Council’s Fit Life scheme to help save swimming pools from closure has been ‘phenomenal’, with 200 sign ups in just 7 days.
With a target of 300 to protect the pools, Cllr Leadbitter is urging communities to ‘keep the foot on the gas’ and says that if the momentum can be maintained beyond the 300 target then they Council’s Administration may be able to protect the Active Schools Programme as well.
The 200 sign ups have come from all over Moray despite the threat of closure being only over 2 pools and the Council Leader has praised the Moray-wide community spirit that he believes will help protect services across the region.
Cllr Leadbitter said: “The response to the pools campaign has been absolutely phenomenal. Communities across Moray have come out in substantial numbers to support leisure services in the whole of Moray, recognising that we can all support each other and help to mitigate the risk to leisure services.
“As well as strong sign ups in Lossiemouth and Keith where the pools are at risk there has also been a strong response from Buckie, Forres and communities across Moray in support of protecting those pools. That speaks volumes for the combined community support across Moray.
“The budget is a massive challenge but I am confident that with the combined efforts of everyone involved the cuts do not have to be as severe.
“It is vital that we continue to get sign ups to Fit Life in support of our leisure services and if we can demonstrate enough support then I believe it may well be possible to protect our Active Schools Programme as well.
“The Fit Life is amazing value and the more people who sign up and use our facilities the easier is to protect the service, as well as the obvious health and fitness benefits.
“I thank our communities for this massive show of support and encourage them to keep working with us to increase Fit Life Membership as much as possible.”