Madam, My daughter, along with about 600 other children took swimming lessons at the pool and I always found the staff extremely helpful and the lesson groups far better than any other in the area.

Naturally, if there are issues then the pool should be closed but I find it incredible the decision was made in 24 hours (Thursday lessons went ahead as normal).

Surely Herefordshire Council should have been monitoring the situation and something should have been done well before closure, to either save the pool or, at least, have a replacement.

As it stands, it is yet another example of our council's lack of imagination and inability to see where funding is REALLY required instead of wasting taxes we pay into ridiculous and unworkable traffic reversals and the like.

Hereford is currently taking much praise for promoting the drug issues which plague our beautiful county but the bottom line is that children (as well as adults) are so poorly catered for with regard to leisure pursuits in this area, when compared to similar sized towns and cities, it is not surprising they hang around lacking motivation to do anything, as there really is so little for them to do. The leisure facilities we do have require huge funding to bring them up to date (Hereford pool is dreadful and has a permanent disgusting smell and as for the cinema - enough said!).

Ex-Leominster users are going to try and book lessons at Hereford but nothing can be promised as there are too many people fighting for not enough spaces.

Why do we have such a fight on our hands just to give our children a skill that, perhaps someday, may save their own or somebody else's life?

For goodness sake, do we not have some forward thinking individuals among our council who speak for the majority of people and wish for Hereford, at least, to step into the 20th century, if not the 21st and provide good quality facilities to keep our community spending its money within the county rather than going elsewhere for their leisure time.

What we seem to have is a bunch frightened of change who cannot think outside of their comfort zones!

WENDY RUTTER-BUTCHER,

The Craft,

Sutton St Nicholas.