Massive turnout to fight closure of Glasgow’s Whitehill Pool 

Dave Semple, Socialist Party Scotland, Dennistoun resident and Whitehill pool user

Over 200 people packed into Dennistoun Library in Glasgow on 8th January, with people turned away at the door, for a Community Council meeting discussing the possible closure of Whitehill Pool and gym.

Leaked documents before Christmas gave details showing that the SNP council were looking at huge cuts to the Glasgow Life/Club ALEO which runs leisure facilities across the city.

In total seven pools/gyms are threatened, plus libraries, golf courses and bowling greens. So much for the 2014 Commonwealth Games legacy! A point made again and again by angry residents at the meeting.

Glasgow’s endless health crisis, with low life expectancies in many of the areas where the closures are mooted, will also be exacerbated. Massive housing schemes like Drumchapel will lose their only gym. 

The meeting was mobilised at short notice over the holiday period, with service users including the Whitehill Swimming Club and disabled children’s groups spreading the word. Glasgow Life staff and Glasgow Unison also mobilised. 3,000 signed an online petition against the closure in the days before the meeting. 

It was clear from the voices of the local working class people at the meeting that Whitehill is massively popular with many groups finding it welcoming and convenient. Nearby Haghill gym further into the East End is also set for closure. 

electric

The mood of the meeting was electric with a real determination to fight. A commitment to set up a local anti cuts campaign at another public meeting was given by the majority in attendance. 

Dennistoun’s three councillors attended, from the SNP, Greens and Labour and the local SNP MSP Ivan McKee. Anger was rightly directed at all parties, including the previous right wing Labour for underinvestment in the facility as the previous administration.

However it reached a pitch when the SNP councillor Allan Casey refused to commit to voting against the closure and defended the decision to make huge cuts in Glasgow by saying his hands were tied by the Tories at Westminster. After realising he had completely lost the meeting he then cynically tried to say he would go back to the SNP group and say Whitehill should not close but other facilities in the city might be better suited for closure. 

Kim Long from the Greens added to the rage at the meeting by saying she used the gym personally but that she couldn’t promise she would vote against all cuts. Last year the SNP administration passed a cuts budget with the support of the Greens. 

Two Socialist Party Scotland members spoke at the meeting and we distributed a leaflet calling on the council to use its financial powers to set a legal no cuts budget and then build a mass campaign to demand the hundreds of millions stolen from Glasgow through austerity. 

I gave support from the PCS trade union NEC to the meeting, and called on the meeting to mobilise to the anti cuts/ equal pay strikers demonstration called by the joint council trade unions on January 24th. 

Socialist Party Scotland member Eric Stevenson urged the meeting to oppose all council cuts and not support any closures of facilities in Glasgow. He asked, to huge applause, when were the councillors going to refuse to implement Tory cuts? And gave the successful example of the Liverpool socialist council struggle against Thatcher in the 1980s. 

Socialist Party Scotland will be campaigning against the cuts in Dennistoun over the next few days. Please contact us if your area is affected by threatened closures and you want to organise a public meeting and action. 

We will be urging local campaigners to call mass lobbies of the councillors surgeries and to organise a mass campaign that includes the following demands: 

• No to all closures and council cuts for massive investment into public services 
• Build a mass campaign across the city to Defend Glasgow Services involving trade unions and communities. Prepare to take mass action to defend services. 
• No to council tax rises and increased charges for facilities and services 
• Bring Glasgow Life and the other ALEO’s back into council control under democratic community oversight 
• Support the fight and strikes of the trade unions for equal pay. 
• Demand the council sets a no cuts budget using financial powers such as borrowing, reserves, recapitalisation and renegotiation of debt and cancellation of PFI projects. Fight for the funding Glasgow needs from Holyrood and Westminster. 

It’s way beyond the time that the Scottish government stopped passing on Tory cuts and used its powers to tax the rich. Corbyn’s Labour and the trade unions should drive out the Tories and demand a general election with mass demonstrations and strikes.