Last year the Vale of White Horse District Council (VWHDC) asked residents how they thought £500,000 should be spent to improve the Abbey Meadows. There were three schemes, but only one involved keeping the outdoor pool. The consultation turned into a campaign to keep the outdoor pool, and people voted overwhelmingly in favour of the option with the outdoor pool. So the pool is staying but does not appear to be having any major investment.

The money will be spent as follows:

• The pool building will get a face-lift and new public toilets will be provided.
• There will be a new changing room for the splash area.
• The play area will be upgraded to create two adventure playgrounds, one for younger children and another for older children – replacing the crazy golf.
• The tennis courts are to be replaced with a new multi-use games area.
• New picnic tables and seating will be added near the river.

Total cost £610,000 – £570,000 comes from the Vale of White Horse District Council, and £45,000 from the Old Gaol development.

Work on the new play areas and the swimming pool building is expected to start this autumn and be completed in spring 2017, but some of the smaller improvements will happen earlier in the year.

Before that, in 2016:

• The outdoor pool will be open between 28 May and 4 September.
• The splash pad will be turned on each day from 9am until 7pm also between 28 May and 4 September.
• The tennis court, crazy golf and pitch and putt are available every day between 11am and 6pm during the summer holiday, on bank holiday weekends, and during weekends from 11 June.

The six week deadline notice, attached to the railings of Old Abbey House, has been removed in the last 24 hours.

It notified community groups that they had six weeks to register an interest in taking over the property. They would then have been given four and a half months to put together a bid.

If there have been no expressions of interest, Old Abbey House will be put back on the market by the Vale of White Horse District Council as ‘surplus to requirements’.

So could the gardens – an integral part of the Green Flag Award winning Abbey Gardens – one day be shut off from public access?

You can either pick up a leaflet from places like the Guildhall, Abbey House, and some shops, or go to tinyurl.com/AbbeyMeadow  and fill in an online survey. The scenarios will also be on display in the Bury Street Community Shop between March 23 and 28, for people wanting to ask questions and find out more, and are at the Abbey Meadows.

The Vale of White Horse District Council have around £500K to spend on improving the area and have presented 3 options for the future of the park:

A) A Place to Swim and Play – ensures the long term future of the open Air Pool and then asks people to rate what other facilities they would like. See the survey for details.
B) A Place to Relax and Unwind – replaces the pool with a cafe, and then asks people to rate what other facilities they would like.
C) A flexible outdoor space – improves the public toilets, and then asks people to rate what other facilities they would like. No pool here either.

The consultation runs to 7 April 2015, and the result will be known after the elections in the Summer. The Abbey Meadows are already the most visited park in the Vale of White Horse District.

I first wrote a blog post called hot hot hot day about the Abbey Meadows in 2006. It was intended to be in the style of Dr Seuss.