A proposal to explore the potential of taking on the Ships and Castles site as a devolved asset in a bid to get it reopened is to be put before Falmouth Town Council.

At a meeting of the finance and general purposes committee on Monday, attended by members of the community interest company Pendennis Leisure, options for the site offered by Cornwall Council were discussed.

Prior to the discussion town clerk Mark Williams advised that the committee had the power to make a decision but committee chair Jude Robinson felt it should only be a recommendation and the final decision should go to full council so all councillors had a say. 

"Cornwall Council won't commit to giving money so that has to be out of the equation so we either knock it on the head or explore possibilities of taking on the whole site," she said.

Making a presentation to the committee, Pendennis Leisure director Matthew Thomson said Cornwall Council had not played "clean wicket" but had "galvanised" community belief.

"There is a really strong force of energy and belief that we can actually do something," he said.

He said Pendennis Leisures' focus was on delivering services out of Ships and Castles but in order to do that the town council had to take up Cornwall Council's offer of taking on the site.

"I do understand that you will all have your squeaky underpants on because all we hear about Ships and Castles is what a money pit it is. All Cornwall Council and Greenwich Leisure talk about is the loss."

He said they were the worst performing leisure company coming out of Covid, 20% below norm with membership,

"We would like to work with you to make this viable through our fundraising efforts to make it viable to operate the site not to buy it.

"If you decide you can't take it, if we are lucky we get the community asset value then we have six months to buy it ourselves. We won't give up, we'll carry on doing that but our first round of fundraising effort is spent raising the capital to buy it. It would be much better you take it for free, we do a joint venture use the asset value to get some other money, takes the time to raise money to actually offset the operation."

He said it would cost around a quarter of a million to clear the site to have something like Falmouth' Hampstead Heath an urban green space.

But Cllr Jayne Kirkham said the council didn't have a quarter of a million to knock it down.

Cllr Alan Jewell said that in his opinion they should "just get it up and running".

"A total of the costs, such as keeping the wave machine running, can be discarded," he said. "We've just to get it up and running basically.

"What they are asking us for as a committee is just to get the ball rolling not asking for us to put our council tax up. They are prepared once we have taken this on for them to raise the money.

"We've got to have a leap of faith now to say to Cornwall Council you've called our bluff and we are going to take it on as a council and we are going to give it a go. Because if we don't it will be sold."

But Cllr Steve Eva said the council had got so many things happening at that the moment that it couldn't get involved.

"You might say it won't cost the council any money but it will. Because if we take it on if anything at the pool happened and the leisure centre collapsed we are left with that property then. It will cost us money."

He said the council staff were at capacity as it was, with everything else the council had on at the moment.

Cllr David Saunby warned that it could leave the town council paying for something it can do nothing with and and it could be left "holding the baby" if it doesn't work out, with the council precept having to go up.

The committee voted to explore the potential of taking on the site as a devolved asset and or register it as an asset of community value.

In a statement after the meeting Gemma Adams, Pendennis Leisure CIC MD said “While it is crucial that Falmouth Town Council covers off the financial risks of taking on Ships and Castles, the real risk the town needs to address is the risk that our young people miss their chance to learn to swim.

"We are already two years behind because young people couldn’t get access to the pool due to restricted opening and Covid, let alone swimming lessons. If we don’t do everything we can right now to make a pool accessible to them then I am terrified that soon we are going to hear stories of young people drowning. It is fundamentally wrong for a coastal community to have nowhere to learn to swim.”

Mr Thomson said Pendennis Leisure would like to invite all people and organisations interested in the future of community leisure in Falmouth to a meeting at 7pm on May 10 at The Princess Pavilion.

"We hope to have representatives from all of Falmouth’s sports clubs and groups there so that we can have a meaningful conversation about what Falmouth’s true needs are, and how best to meet them," he said. "Hosting community meeting on May 10 to check back in objectives leisure partners in the house want all leisure activists in town to come."