By Community Correspondent, Owen Tonks

Supporters of the Save-Purley-Pool Campaign were left shocked and angry recently as they were turned away from a residents meeting and told that they could not distribute their leaflets at the event.

Organisers of a recent meeting of the Neighbourhood Partnership at Christ Church, Brighton Road in Purley stopped the distribution of a leaflet explaining the position on the development of the swimming pool, multi-storey car park and the disused site of the old Sainsbury’s supermarket in the High Street.

Christine Beverley, a local resident, said: “I can’t understand why they would do that; surely the Neighbourhood Partnership would care about what is happening in their town. It’s an issue that a lot of local people are concerned about.”

Croydon Council claims that the swimming pool is too expensive to maintain but is keeping it open for an extra three years.

The leaflet produced by the campaign, states: “The final conclusion of a Consulting engineer’s report in March 2008 shows the cost of bringing Purley Pool up to a high standard would be £764,765. That would be 10% of the cost of building a new pool at Waddon.”

The Save-Purley-Pool Campaign leaflets were, however, given out at meetings of the Purley and Woodcote Residents Association and the Riddlesdown Residents Association.

The Neighbourhood Partnership was unavailable for comment.