A LIFELINE has been thrown to parents and children fighting the closure of their swimming pool.

There have been protests and a petition organised by Hartlepool Swimming Club since Mayor Stuart Drummond decided to close Rossmere Swimming Pool.

However, the mayor announced yesterday that he is prepared to reconsider and the council will hold an extraordinary public meeting.

He made his original decision to close the pool in November after council officers said it would cost £450,000 to meet health and safety requirements at the pool.

However after protests by the public, who have stressed all children in a seaside town should learn to swim, and interventions by MP Iain Wright and leading councillors, Mr Drummond has decided to look at the issue again.

The meeting will be held tomorrow, at 7pm at Hartlepool Civic Centre.

However, Mr Drummond said: "This meeting has been set up without anyone contacting me, which is very disappointing.

"I do have a prior engagement at a Hartlepool Hospice fundraising event on Thursday, which puts me in a very difficult position.

"Regardless of the political arguments, the bottom line is that we all need to keep our focus on the services we provide.

"Given the concern which has been expressed by local people, I am prepared to re-examine the original decision.

"I said at the time that it is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make, but felt, on balance, we couldn't justify spending £450,000 on such an outdated facility. As a council, I felt we had to move forward and look to invest our scarce resources more wisely."

Shaun Cook, chairman of Hartlepool Swimming Club, welcomed the news.

He said: "This gives us a fighting chance and we are going to take it.

"There's a lot of support out there to save the pool. We got 700 signatures in four days, but if we'd kept going, there would have been thousands."

The swimming club's cause has been taken up by Labour councillor Michael Johnson, who said the public had not been consulted properly.

Councillor Johnson said: "We hope that this issue can be re-examined with the costings and the work needed looked at in depth."

Rossmere Pool has been used to teach children in Hartlepool to swim for more than 40 years