Newsletter - February 2021 -

Welcome to our fourth newsletter

A belated "Happy New Year!" to you all. As we write we are still in lockdown. It looks like 2021 is going to be another challenging year. But we are undeterred! Read on to hear our progress and plans for the pool.

We all enjoy a dip in the sea but most of us save it for the summer months when the waters are warm. Swimming in the winter is something many cannot contemplate. However, the 365 swimmers are an exception and have been in the water every day for over a year. They remain undeterred by storms, wind, waves, jellyfish shoals and winter water. What’s more they’ve been using their daily swim to raise money for charity, including Shoalstone Pool.

We’d like to thank them from the bottom of our hearts for the donation of £5000 they passed on to the Friends of Shoalstone Pool. This is a fantastic fundraising effort and will help us significantly with our plans for opening and sustaining the seawater pool.

The 365 swimmers are still at it! And you can follow their progress via their Facebook page here

Having been closed for the entire season in 2020 we are itching to get the pool open in 2021. As you can imagine this is still not an easy task. As we write this newsletter a national lockdown is in place and we have no sight of any dates by which leisure facilities can begin to open. Like all of you we are hoping for normality by summer and as such we are working on a plan based upon the things that we know. Our team is currently assessing the feasibility of recruiting lifeguards, implementing booking systems, creating covid safe environments and reacting as regulations change.

This will all become part of an opening plan that will spring into action as soon as conditions allow. In the meantime we’d like to hear your thoughts concerning pool opening? What do you think? What protections should we put in place? How should we go about opening if the panademc is still in sway? We’d welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Brixham is well served with a number of interactive webcams that give a day-to-day insight into weather conditions and views around the town. However, none of these currently cover the pool and as a result we decided to install our own. It was a marathon effort to get internet connectivity to the pool buildings but we are delighted to announce that we now have a webcam. You can see it HERE

The camera is available 24 hours a day and provides a fantastic view over the pool and out into the bay. The camera resolution has been set with privacy in mind in order to minimise any concerns and we do not record or store any images from the camera

We’re always keen to hear from you on any matter concerning the pool be it fundraising ideas, offers for help or anything that we may not have thought of. Please feel free to get in touch via our email address info@shoalstonepool.com or phone Dave on 07799 414702.

Whilst we have been closed in 2020 our volunteer led team have been beavering away on a strategic plan to ensure that the pool is sustainable for the long term. This has included a great deal of work into a long term maintenance plan for the pool and its surrounding infrastructure.

We have an ongoing issue with the pool deck area popular with sunbathers in the summer. This area is prone to potholes and it is important that we properly assess the cause of these before filling them. In December we carried out a series of exploratory borehole drills in order that we can understand what lies beneath this deck and its current state. This was a noisey day with diamond tipped drills cutting 2 metre holes into the deck down to bedrock. The information we received was invaluable and we are confident that we have discovered the root cause of the potholes.

In tandem we carried out a full structural survey of the pool, deck and sea wall using a local civil engineer. His report, in conjunction with the core drilling will properly equip us to commission short, medium and long term works to sustain the pool and sea wall.

As part of this we are developing a partnership with South Devon College and their Marine and Civil Engineering department. Six students are carrying out their own mini-surveys of the pool and providing us with recommendations. SDC are also running drone surveys of the area. Every little bit of information helps.

Many of you may remember the consultation we carried out concerning the strategy developed by our management team for the pool. As part of this we recommended a change in structure of the company that manages the pool from a community interest company to a charitable incorporated organisation. The key benefit of this change lies in fundraising as it allows us to bid for monies from trusts and funds that are only open to organisations of a charitable nature.

The Friends of Shoalstone Pool are integral to these discussions and we are working with them to effect the merger of the two organisations into a single union ready to drive the pool forward. These plans have gathered pace after a series of discussions with Brixham Town Council and some hard work internally on how to execute the change. We hope to have this actioned over the next couple of months and as a result our fundraising activity will accelerate significantly.

The Brixham Central Co-Operative convenience store at 75 Fore Street have very kindly nominated Shoalstone Pool as the beneficiary of their regular charity raffle. Customers can buy tickets to win a fantastic hamper of edible goodies and tickets are on sale in the store right now.

We thank them kindly for their support, especially Jordan Loftus for organising along with anyone who purchases a ticket as part of their food shopping.

Congratulations to local resident Adam Furneux whose breath-taking photo of Shoalstone Pool won the ‘Youth Your View’ category of the 2020 UK Landscape Photographer of the Year.

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Read our previous newsletter

Our November 2020 can be viewed here

Contact Us

Shoalstone Pool, Berry Head Road, Brixham,TQ5 9FT

Further Information

We are always keen to hear your views and feedback. If you have something to tell us please do get in touch. New Volunteers are always welcome. We’re busy maintaining and improving the pool all year round.