Then-trendy Tropicana

I RETIRED to Weston five years ago and have watched the various attempts to resurrect the Tropicana.

Before that, as a Bristolian, I visited Weston many times, and swam just once in the glorious old pool before the ill-advised and poorly executed conversion into the then trendy Tropicana.

At home in Bristol I used to enjoy a swim, but not very often, and this perhaps is a clue to the lack of viability of pools in general. Everyone likes the occasional swim, and remembers their favourite pool with affection, but swimming is not a sufficiently pleasant experience to be repeated very often.

When I lived in California I used to swim every day, but this was different, I could change in my flat and stroll down to the pool, then go back home to change afterward. By contrast here in the UK one has to use communal facilities, store ones clothing, and dress in the company of strangers. The swim is a happy memory but the overall experience is not.

When I look at the ugly, derelict building which would cost so many millions to restore and then think how few people would make use of it and how seldom each of them would brave the weather and the public aspects, I realise that the Victorian ideal of communal swimming is long dead and I wish the councils would get together and dynamite the whole rotten thing.

MIKE ROGERS

Baker Street

Weston