SWIMMING BATH APARTHEID DENIED

08-12-2006

Has apartheid in the pool spread from Wolverhampton's Central Baths to Smethwick?Edward Cameron investigates.

Sandwell Council has been advertising a swimming session on a Monday morning for women aged over 50, which stronglysuggests that only certain racesneed apply.

This is how the press release reads - and it's pretty unambiguous: “Sandwell Leisure Trust, in partnership with Active Sandwell has launched a new swimming session in Smethwick for women aged 50+ from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Yemeni communities.”

Sounds like an open and shut case. The release makes no suggestion that anyone else, Black, White, Oriental or any other Asian communities would bewelcome. And the fact that certain ethnic groups are named as the target group would strongly suggest that others are unwelome.

Following revelations on this website in the last month that Wolverhampton had started a Muslim women only session the release seemed to be implying that Smethwick Swimming Centre was doing the same thing.

Not so, apparently. A statement was issued following criticism from Warley MP John Spellar, who said that to him the advert implied segregation.

Paul Slater, chief executive of Sandwell Leisure Trust said: “The sessions are certainly not limited to any part of the community and I regret any confusion over that and would like to make it clear that all women over 50 are welcome.”

Fair enough. Except he adds: “What we are trying to do is get more and more people to take part in exercise and increase use of the pool by making it easier for women from those particular communities to join in - and that has proved successful.”

What does the council need to do to make it easier for Bangladeshi women to join in? He doesn't say. Surely not apartheid-style, segregated sessions?

If this was a breakdown in communication, are we meant to believe that a highly professional marketing team has failed to spot a basic flaw in the initial release - that there should be some mention that all women were welcome, but that perhaps women from these mentioned communities were perhaps under-represented?

Or is this a case of swiftly back-tracking (back-stroking?) to avoid some highly embarrassing publicity?
(check out earlier story here)