THERE seems to be some confusion around the budget decision to charge swimmers over 60 in holiday periods so perhaps I can explain.

The Welsh Government gives councils a grant to allow free swimming for the over-60s during school term times. It also allows for children to enjoy free swimming in holiday times.

The grant compensates councils for the loss of income, pool and staff time to deliver the scheme.

Monmouthshire County Council has in the past extended over-60s swimming to holiday times.

Currently the take up of the grant by the over-60s is more than twice the budget while the children's element is slightly under budget.

The public, in a series of meetings across the county since Christmas, has told us that they want services preserved, but acknowledging the severe cutbacks from the Welsh Government, they are prepared to accept modest increases in charges.

Other councils are closing leisure centres. We are working to keep ours open.

The proposal that our council has now confirmed is for a charge of £1.80 per swim in school holiday times only. Concessions are available for those on low incomes which can reduce the cost by half.

Frequent swimmers can purchase bonus point cards which will give them 20 swims for £27.

So someone over 60 can swim as many times as they wish in term times and almost twice a week in holiday times for £27 per year. Taken across the year that is a little over 50p per week. Of course we do not want anyone to give up swimming as a result of these charges.

It is important that they should keep as fit as possible but we have tried to share the pain of the reductions in funding as fairly as possible.

The same grant also seeks to encourage more children to swim. At the moment approximately 30 per cent of children leaving primary school cannot swim 25 metres. We need to improve on those figures.

Apart from the obvious advantage of being able to swim it will help combat the growing problem of obesity in children.

– Bob Greenland, Deputy Leader, Monmouthshire County Council.