Paulsgrove splash park in Portsmouth is due to reopen this summer

The facility has been closed for the past year following a successful campaign that saw it brought back into use for the first time in several years in 2018.

But following repair work and recruitment of staff to run it, Portsmouth City Council has now confirmed the pool will be reopened ‘very soon’.

A long-running campaign saw the splash pool brought back into use in May 2018, having been left abandoned for several years. This happened after the operation of the Marsden Road community centre was brought back in-house by the city council.

The following year, new benches and parasols were installed to improve the offering for visitors following a motion brought forward to the full council.

However, the facility has been closed for the last year.

The issue of its reopening was raised at Monday's meeting of the city council's housing scrutiny board by councillor Scott Payter-Harris.

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In response to his question about the progress of work to bring it back into use, the council's head of business growth for play, Jo Bennett, confirmed staffing was now in place to facilitate this.

‘Summer recruitment was really positive - we were oversubscribed and we had some great applicants,’ she said. ‘We’ve managed to fill all of the places and we do have enough summer staff [to reopen the pool].’

Repairs to the structure of the splash pool have already been completed and the council is now only waiting on the results of a test of the water quality.

Paulsgrove ward councillor Gemma New, who was a key figure in the campaign to bring the splash pool back into use, welcomed the news.

‘The splash pool was closed throughout last year but we're now hoping it's very close to being ready to reopen,’ she said.

‘It’s very important to the community that we get this back up and running. Having something like this in the north of the city is so great for young families who won't need to travel south to make use of such a facility.’

The splash pool is expected to reopen in the coming weeks, depending on the results of the water quality test.