SOUTHEND Swimming Club (SOS) has criticised Southend Council’s handling of the dispute surrounding the use of the new Garon Park swimming pool.

The club says the council has not resolved a timetable issue, and has complied a report on the situation which contains a “number of anomalies”.

The club also says the council’s proposal to stop them using the pool if they don’t merge into a single club with the Borough of Southend Swimming Club, is a “very drastic measure”.

A statement sent to the Echo by Heidi Parker, secretary at Southend Swimming Club,denies any feud between the clubs, who have been set a deadline to form one single club, and warned if they don’t they will lose access to all of the borough’s pools.

It says: “There was an outstanding issue with the allocation of water time on Wednesday evenings.

“The council said they would come back with suggestions of how this could be allocated and, to be honest, we expected them to say we could have two lanes each, and this would have been fine.”

It also says they were unhappy with an application by Canvey Swimming Club to form a new club with BOSS at Garon Park.

It says: “We felt the joint training of BOSS and Canvey would impact on swimmers from Southend.

“After all, there is only a limited amount of water time for competitive swimming at Garon, so surely those swimmers from the town should have preference.”

SOS and BOSS were supposed to have started operating as one club at the opening of the new Garon Park facility in November last year, but SOS members held a protest and refused to get in the pool with BOSS swimmers.

The council has now said it will form a new club if they don’t merge by October 1, and will consider a report on that proposal at its cabinet meeting tonight.

The SOS statement says: “There are a number of anomalies in the report, and it causes a considerable amount of concern for the 220 SOS swimmers.

“And not least the huge fee increases suggested, which was one of the reasons the merger didn’t get going in the first place.

“Banning the swimmers seems a very drastic measure; they are not causing any problems at the centre, they are good kids and are just getting on with their training.”