I have a young son who was taking swimming lessons prior to the summer holiday, and he is at the age when swimming lessons are important to him, and therefore it is vital that the council reopens the Lido as soon as possible so as to continue his lessons.

The opportunity will be missed if we do not get new swimming facilities until 2011, and we don't get a second chance – children don't stay children forever.

For us, swimming is an important part of our weekly fitness programme, and we are currently travelling to Ashbourne which costs us nearly a gallon of petrol plus car parking each trip. This totals several hundred pounds per year of extra cost that we can not afford at this time.

I think that it is dreadful that the Lido has been run-down for so long. It seems to me that the it has always been on the council agenda to allow the Lido to deteriorate so that they can close it and sell the land off.

It is bad enough that we don't have a leisure centre since the closure of Sherwood Hall, but to be without a pool would be unthinkable. To be honest, it makes me want to move to another district that seems to take this a lot more seriously.

Antony Handley
Matlock Bath.