DESPITE receiving less financial support from Scottish Borders Council, the trust which runs the Laidlaw Memorial swimming pool and fitness centre in Jedburgh has reported a healthy profit in its annual accounts.

In the year ended March 31, 2017, the Jedburgh Leisure Facilities Trust, which took control of the Oxnam Road venue in 2003, made a trading surplus of £11,640 on total expenditure of £290,730.

This compares to the deficit of £5,888 sustained the previous year, when expenditure was £283,174.

In his trustees’ report signed off last week, director George Burt reveals that the annual management fee from the council had been cut from £118,000 to £115,000 in 2016/17, but this had been more than offset by the decision to raise admission prices, for the first time in three years, by five per cent.

“While this was the last year of the planned cuts in the management fee, there is no guarantee that the present level will continue,” warns Mr Burt.

“It is noteworthy that when we took over the pool in 2003, the fee was £135,000, which increased with inflation every year, but now it is £115,000 with no annual increases.”

In addition to the extra £9,000 in income generated by the new admission prices, Mr Burt says the recently-completed replacement of fluorescent lights with energy saving LED lights would save the trust around £5,000 a year.

He revealed that plans to refurbish changing facilities at the centre are “well on track”, with capital grants from the council of £66,000 available: “We hope to start work in a few months, once grants from other funders have been secured.” 

Gifted to the town by ex-Provost James Laidlaw in 1923, the original baths were replaced by the current 25-metre pool and building in Oxnam Road in 1974.

When that facility was earmarked for extinction by SBC in 2003, a local committee emerged to fight the closure and the Jedburgh Leisure Facilities Trust was formed to run the pool.