CARLISLE'S historic Turkish Baths will be shut down from later this month, a meeting of the city council has agreed - though they are describing the closure as 'temporary'.
Carlisle City Council executive discussed the proposal at a meeting this afternoon.
The options put before members were either to commission leisure group GLL to continue operating the Turkish Baths and maintaining the building until the end of December 2022, or to mothball the facilities until the adjacent 1970s building is demolished.
Recommending the latter motion, Cllr Stephen Higgs said: "My recommendation is that the Turkish Baths service is temporarily suspended when GLL vacate the site."
He added that council will 'continue to do all it can to support the realisation of the sustainable, long-term future' for the Turkish Baths, once the demolition of the adjacent 1970s building has taken place.
Members had received an options report setting out the financial impact of keeping the baths operational after the transfer of swimming provision to The Sands Centre as part of a £27million redevelopment.
This is planned to take place in late October - the Turkish Baths will remain open until this point.
The Turkish Baths were already scheduled to close in early 2023 to allow demolition to take place of the adjacent 1970s Pools.
This will be included in the £20million station gateway development, led by Cumbria County Council with support from the city council and other partners.
The options paper indicated that it will cost around £26,500 a month to keep the site operational, and that there are one-off costs of up to £50,000 to be able to run the Turkish baths as a standalone facility.
Councillors voted to close the Baths.
The Friends of Carlisle Victorian and Turkish Baths, an active campaign group set up in 2021 to preserve the historic baths, had a group of members present at the meeting.
The reaction from campaigners was raucous following the vote, with one member saying: “I don’t know how you can sleep at night.”
Julie Minns, chair of the Friends, said: “I think ‘disappointing’ doesn’t come close to summing up how we feel.
“The Conservative leadership of this council has just decided to close Cumbria’s only Turkish baths.”
Cllr Higgs said after the meeting: “Although we appreciate the importance of the building and have invested a lot to keep it running, we need to take into account the rising costs of utilities, building maintenance and operational maintenance.
“We also need to factor in the investment needed to make the site stand-alone from The Pools.
“These works would be essential to make the site DDA compliant and provide safe exit routes in the event of a fire.
“We would be incurring substantial costs to keep the site open as a standalone facility for only a few months.”
From April 2023, Carlisle City Council will cease to exist, and Cumberland Council will take control of the council’s assets which will include the Turkish Baths.
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