We are told we have an overweight, under-exercising population that is putting pressure on the NHS. Yet the council wants to close Temple Cowley swimming pool and gym.

Up to 250,000 people a year use the facilities at the pool and gym, which they can get to easily as it is close to many different bus routes and walkable from some of the most densely populated areas of the town – like Rose Hill and central Cowley.

So far the council has chosen to spend nearly £700,000 in consultants’ fees and tenders rather than retain the first swimming pool to be established in Oxford – one which about 11,000 people petitioned to keep open.

Those 11,000 people equate to about 10 per cent of our adult population.

Our Labour city council stressed that it wanted to consult with the people who voted it in to office. But not only does it not listen to them, it is not interested in what the health professionals say either.

There seems to be something seriously wrong with our democratic processes when both the needs and wants of the local populace can be so easily ignored.

PIP WILLCOX, Crescent Road, Cowley, Oxford