NOTE to all councillors with regard to Full Council meeting on Wednesday, February 17.

Some of you must presumably be pleased now that Somerset County Council's Regulation Committee has granted outline planning permission for the swimming pool to be built at Chilton Trinity.

I attended this meeting and was struck that so many highly paid people with a vested interest in this project were deployed to speak in support of the proposal and that even county council leader Ken Maddock attended. Alison Griffin, corporate director; Julia Ridge, programme director for Building Schools for the Future (BSF); Pat Hollinghurst, head teacher of Chilton Trinity Technology College; David Taylor, director of children's services; Paul Ellingham, planning agent for BSF, spoke in support – my what a line-up. However, there was no-one there representing Sedgemoor residents or businesses apart from those objecting to the positioning of the new pool and the fact it is being made quite clear it will be a school pool.

I can assure you this will only be the beginning of your troubles.

Chilton Trinity is clearly not the right place for the new swimming pool; it should be in the town centre, accessible to all, helping to sustain the vitality and viability of the town centre, which is already suffering badly, and providing a dedicated public swimming facility with gym.

In contrast, an out-of-town school swimming pool at Chilton Trinity with its poor to non-existent bus service, will not be accessible to all and will do nothing to help sustain the vitality and viability of the town centre.

Those using the other three secondary and all the primary schools in the area will want access, along with the public including early birds and lunch-hour swimmers – the infrastructure at Chilton Street will not be able to cope safely with such additional traffic.

There will also be extreme danger from the existing and additional heavy traffic for those children who attend Chilton Trinity.

Now you are contemplating spending £6.3million and more if you have to pay interest on your borrowing, on a school pool on the outskirts of town where there will be only limited access to the public.

This is money collected from residents of Sedgemoor by council tax and the sale of our assets.

There has been no public consultation since Hepher Dixon did its consultation exercise in 2006 in the Town Hall and recommended that the new pool and gym be built on the Northgate site as it was in the town centre, accessible to all and supported by the general public.

I think it also brings in to question the legality of this high spend from the public purse as it is part of BSF and therefore it should be the remit of Somerset County Council.

Sedgemoor is not required to provide educational facilities.

Angela Tarr Bridgwater Forward