Portsmouth City Council elections: Labour challenges the Liberal Democrats over swimming pools, finances and fly-tipping

As the local elections approach, the Portsmouth Labour group has taken aim at the council’s track record, raising concerns over various issues. Residents will head to the polls on May 2 to cast their vote, 14 seats are up for grabs, one in each ward, out of 42 in total.

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Local government finance

Portsmouth City Council approved its annual budget in February this year, requiring a yearly saving of £1m for the next three years. Labour group leader Cllr Charlotte Gerada said that the Liberal Democrats “peddle a myth” that they are a party of financial competence while Labour-led authorities, like Southampton City Council, go bankrupt.

“This couldn’t be further from the truth,” she added, stating that Lib-Dem councils in Woking, Eastleigh and Eastbourne are either bankrupt or “teetering on the edge of financial collapse”. She dismissed the claim that the Lib-Dems have not cut council services, citing youth services “devastated” by cuts, reduced respite care for carers and the Portsmouth Stroke Recovery Service which Labour “has to fight tooth and nail” to preserve.

She then accused the party of being “obsessed” with criticising Southampton City Council’s finances, which required £121m of government support to balance its budget. However, Cllr Gerada said the financial issues are the fault of the previous conservative administration.

She added that Portsmouth’s advantage over Southampton is the publicly owned port, which generated £8m for the council last year. By contrast, the profits from Southampton’s privately owned port “are paid to shareholders in the form of dividends each year”.

In response, Cllr Steve Pitt, leader of the council, said: “It is not a ‘myth’ that we run the council’s finances well. There was an independent review of the council which said so.” He added that his administration is “protecting services despite massive reductions in government funding”. He then dismissed the idea that his party cut the stroke recovery services, as it was threatened after the NHS funding was no longer available. He asserted that the council has protected more youth services than the majority of councils, however, he said additional government funding would be needed to provide more.

On Southampton, Cllr Pitt said that Labour is slashing public services while proposing to sell off assets. He accepted that the “part of the problem” was caused by the previous Conservative administration “but they were only in office for a year”.

Swimming facilities

Cllr Gerada said residents value the importance of swimming lessons for children, given that Portsmouth is an island city.

“The constant sewage leaks can make sea swimming a challenge too, placing even more importance on having access to affordable swimming pools. Despite this, the Lib-Dems who run Portsmouth City Council have closed all of the public pools in the south of the city on their watch. Plans for the new Bransbury Leisure Centre have been delayed, scaled back and will take years to be built.”

She added that many residents are relying on the Mountbatten Centre in Hilsea and Ravelin Sports Centre in Cambridge Road which can be difficult to travel to and costly. While she accepts that many of the former Pompey pools, such as Victoria Swimming Baths, the Pyramids and Eastney swimming pool were becoming expensive, she said it’s a pity the Lib-Dems didn’t anticipate the “wider impact”.

“Many now are unable to go swimming at all, and will continue to be unable to, for many years to come.”

Cllr Pitt responded by saying that the new Bransbury Park Swimming Pool in Eastney, if approved, would hold swimming lessons for at least six local schools and is expected to be built in 2026. He outlined the cost pressures of the Pyramids swimming pool in Southsea, which lost over £700k in 2020 with rising costs potentially increasing it to £1m per year. He added that the sports hall was removed from the Bransbury project because a better facility has been identified elsewhere. He also stressed that residents can swim in the Charter Community Sports Centre.

“The Lib Dems did think about the wider impact – these decisions were forced upon us. When we returned to administration in 2018, there was a net above Eastney pool to stop debris from the roof falling on people in the pool.

“We moved at pace to develop a strategy and we have followed that strategy.”

Street cleanliness

Hundreds of residents “in recent months” have told Portsmouth Labour that the state of the streets across the city “seems to be dirtier than ever”, Cllr Gerada said. “Fly-tipping, dog mess, rubbish and broken glass is blighting our neighbourhoods.” She added that residents with disabilities or mobility issues, and parents with pushchairs “tell us how hard it is to get from A to B because of dodging bins and rubbish down roads”.

She added “more needs to be done” like ensuring streets are cleaned on bin day, offering flat-fronted homes smaller bins and looking into council-owned skips for those that can’t drive to the tip.

Cllr Pitt said the council has recently brought the waste contract back in-house “to help address the issue – we had to wait until the previous contract ended”. He said that smaller bins and stackable boxes are already available for flat-fronted houses and that officers have investigated community skips however “ fly-tipping in Portsmouth is declining”.

“We want clean streets too but to crack down on littering and dog mess, you need to be able to actually catch offenders in the act. New measures to stop bins being left out when they shouldn’t be are also being implemented and residents who have problems with getting bins inside are being supported.”