Swindon council wants £7m to restore Health Hydro

Swindon Borough Council has already provided £1.5m to GLL, the independent management organisation which runs the grade II* listed building in Milton Road, for upgrades and maintenance.

And it intends to raise the rest of the money for further improvements.

Keith Williams, the council’s cabinet member for corporate services and performance, told members of the resources and corporate overview and scrutiny committee the first tranche of money was part of a larger scheme to restore the baths.

He said: “It’s been agreed that nothing can be done with the £1.5m that has to be undone when we find the rest of the money.

“We don’t intend that money to come direct from the council, but we are looking at how we raise it from grants.”

The baths were built in 1891 for the Great Western Railway Medical Fund Society.

The Victorian building now houses a 33m, four-lane swimming pool, a gym, a weekly fitness class programme, Turkish baths and a natural health clinic.

The council has already commissioned a study into what could be done with the building from specialist consultants Fourth Street.

It came up with two main options.

The first, which is understood to be the favoured option, would be to create a wellbeing zone in the dry side off the closed entrance in Milton Road.

It says: “The practitioner and consulting rooms adjacent to this entrance will become treatment and consulting rooms as part of the health and wellbeing centre.

"The first floor of the health and wellbeing centre will be accessed via the upgraded former lift and a new integrated staircase. The first floor spaces will become an extension of the health and wellbeing centre, providing a range of spaces contained within their existing fabric and footprints for further treatment and consulting rooms, community and charitable organisations and for private hire.”

A second option is to construct a mezzanine floor above the public washing baths, in the existing reception area and the wet change area.

It would house a new gym and studio space and access to dryside changing rooms to be built on it.

The dispensary, consulting rooms and waiting areas “will be populated by health and wellbeing services – health practitioners, triage, specialist health-related retail (pharmacy, nutrition, wholefoods etc) professional networking programme health-related development and training, a creche, etc.”

The report adds: “The first floor areas of the wellbeing centre will be largely private spaces occupied by tenants such as community organisations and health-related charities; and flexible space and meeting rooms for hire and events programming.”

A decision on which option is to be taken forward by Swindon Borough Council and GLL is expected soon.

One possible source of funding is the £1.6bn Stronger Town Fund announced by former prime minister Theresa May a year ago.

A proposal to turn the Victorian consulting rooms into 30 flats in 2016 met significant public opposition, led by the Friends of the Health Hydro group.

Members of the group say they are pleased there is agreement to do something about the building to keep it in use.

Andrea Green said: “We’re delighted that the council and GLL and the Friends are working together, and that there is a commitment to raising the money and funding. It’s taking quite a long time to get here.”

Andrea’s colleague Gerry Hannon said: “As always the devil is in the detail.”

The pair agreed that bringing the small pool back into use was probably the main priority for the friends’ group.

Otherwise, Gerry said: “We’d like the ‘dryside’, as we call it, to be opened out and brought back into proper public use.”

That part of the building was originally used to provide as comprehensive a system of health care for workers as was available in Britain in the 19th century. It was famously used as a model when politicians were planning the foundation of the NHS.

Behind the public areas lies a warren of corridors and staircases with offices and rooms, which were used as doctors’ consulting rooms, pharmacists, dentistry, chiropody and even hairdressing.

While many are disused or used just for storage, some are in use by such modern therapies and massage, or for children’s services.

Some original features, such as fireplaces, survive. The original linen room still has the wooden Victorian sliding doors to the cupboards and the old dispensary room keeps its medicine cabinets – constructed when the hydro was first built.

Speaking to the council committee Coun Williams said: “It’s not an easy space to find a sustainable use for, they are small rooms and not easily adaptable for several different purposes.”

Mr Hannon said: “There are rooms which would be perfect for yoga classes or Tai Chi or meditation.

“Those uses would be in keeping with the original purpose of the Health Hydro.

"When it was built, the baths and the pool and things like the hairdressers were all about health and general wellbeing. More modern therapies would fit in with that perfectly well.”

Andrea added: “There’s always a discussion about whether you go for conservation or restoration.

"We know the baths can’t be kept exactly like they were in the 19th century, we accept that.

“We think it’s important that any use should be sympathetic to the original fabric of the building and should also be in keeping with its original use and ethos.

"This was built, by working people, for the health of workers, and we think any use should be in keeping with that, and it should remain an asset to the community."

The building was recently upgraded from Grade II listed status.

Andrea said: “That took an awful lot of work for a lot of people. The Grade II listing protected the outside of the building, the but the star now protects he inside of it as well.”

A celebration will be held at the baths on March 18.

Small but not insignificant

While the main pool, Turkish baths, and public washing baths make the Health Hydro significant enough, the presence of the main pool and small pool together elevate it again.

A report on the Health Hydro by architects and historic building consultants Insalls says: “The large pool alone is the 27th oldest working pool in the country and with the small pool, the ninth oldest listed.”

The small pool has been shut since January 2016. A leak in a pipe could have been fixed for about £150,000, but the presence of asbestos made the repairs potentially more complex and expensive and the pool has remained closed.

Andrea Green of the Friends of the Health Hydro said: “It was built after the main pool so women and children could swim, as it wasn’t thought appropriate that women and men would swim together at the time.

“And because it was for women, it was smaller.”

Its lesser size, with a shallow end now just two feet in depth means that the small pool would be ideal for teaching younger children to swim with their families or in classes away from activities in the main pool.

While the Friends of the Health Hydro wants to see the small pool brought back into swimming use, the Fourth Street report suggests it could be boarded over to make a multi-use space. One option, the mezzanine plan, offers five solutions including mothballing it, restoring it for swimming, restoring it to its original Victorian state,with changing cubicles, or making it a hydrotherapy facility.