OXFORD City Council will push on with plans to close Temple Cowley Pool, despite a petition from residents. Councillors decided not to take action over the 2,000-name petition entitled “Labour Must Listen to Oxford” submitted by the Save Temple Cowley Pools Campaign.

The peitition, which was discussed at the full council meeting this week, said: “In the local elections in May, Labour received 14,321 votes, 12.8 per cent of the electorate.

“The Save Temple Cowley Pools campaign has over 17,500 signatures on the petitions it has submitted to the Oxford City Council that Labour still controls.

“As a result, we the undersigned do not believe that Labour has an electoral moral mandate to build a new 25m non-Olympic swimming pool in Blackbird Leys for over £13m, one third of this year’s building budget affecting all Oxford council taxpayers, when £3m will refurbish and improve the existing leisure facilities in East Oxford.”

But councillors decided simply to “note” the petition, despite pleas from the Green Party for them to take it more seriously.

Speaking after the meeting, Labour councillor and city board member for leisure services said the arguments for closing Temple Cowley still stacked up.

He said: “We’ve been here before, we’ve had three petitions presented to us and the underlying facts haven’t changed.

“Temple Cowley still costs us far too much to run, and there are also the environmental credentials. Temple Cowley emits 866 tonnes of CO2 per year, and a new facility would only emit 286 tonnes.”