THERE may yet be a ‘glimmer of hope’ that Trowbridge finally gets the swimming pool it was promised after a leading Wiltshire Council planner said it wasn’t dead and buried.

Former cabinet member for leisure, Cllr Stuart Wheeler, said in 2010 that a £20m water park and leisure complex would be completed by the summer of 2017 on the East Wing site in Bythesea Road.

At Thursday’s area board meeting, director of economic development and planning, Tim Martienssen, said that a planning application for a new health centre, leisure facility, shops and restaurants should be submitted on June 27.

Mr Martienssen then told the Wiltshire Times after the meeting that although a pool was not in the current outline planning application, that could yet change going forward.

“The swimming pool is something members of the public and councillors have talked about but there is a big challenge associated with that. However, it is not off the table,” he said

“The outline planning permission sets out how we intend to bring the site forward but the details of delivering certain things on the land comes later and that is the next big challenge.

“We are doing a lot of work with the NHS to secure that health facility. That has been a big project. They have put forward several million pounds in funding and we also secured some government funding this year. We are working hard on delivering that.

“We are waiting on the Environment Agency to get back to us too.”

In February, the authority announced received £600,000 from the government to go towards the East Wing site. It is thought that the whole project could cost between £12-20m.

Trowbridge Cllr Peter Fuller said: “I am very glad that he said that. There is still a glimmer of hope for us.”Initially we were given the impression that Wiltshire Council couldn’t include the swimming pool because of finances.

“I fully support the need for a swimming pool. I think there is a feeling in the town that the pool at Clarendon Academy is not really ours. Several million will come from the CCG for a health centre and the rest is likely to come from taxpayers’ money, selling housing land to developers and the Ashton Street site being sold off, among other things.

Cllr Stewart Palmen added: “We have been applying pressure to make sure that Trowbridge gets the swimming pool it was promised. I think we feel Trowbridge has been left behind as other towns have got their campuses. So this is promising news.”