THE contract for the construction of the Dartmouth and District Indoor Pool at Town­stal has been signed.

Yesterday, trustees Sir Geoffrey Newman, George Hardy, David Shaw and Ray Bridges signed a contract for the construction of the new pool alongside Dartmouth Leisure Centre.

The signing marks the culmination of seven years of hard work by the pool trust.

Offers of funding were secured in 2009 from Devon County Council for £1.5m, followed by South Hams Council with a grant of £400,000, and Dart­mouth Town Council with a grant of £250,000, later revised to a cash grant of £150,000, and up to £10,000 a year for 10 years as revenue support.

Tenders were invited for a design and build project where the builder would design a pool, obtain planning permission, and build the pool.

Subsequently, a set of plans was produced for a four-lane pool with a learner pool. At the time, charity swimming pools were exempt from VAT.

Unfortunately, later legislation brought charity swimming pools into the standard VAT regime.

This meant the trust would have to find a further £400,000 on top of the pledged £2.05m.

The trust had consulted various VAT experts for a solution which would result in either not having to pay VAT, or being able to recover all the VAT on the build cost. It was not until Price Waterhouse Cooper was instructed that a sound plan emerged.

The favoured option was to encourage South Hams Council to become the developer, and then lease the pool to the trust.

Local authorities are exempt from VAT, so this solution would have saved the Trust some £400,000. How­ever, South Hams Council declined to pursue this option.

Price Waterhouse Cooper undertook more research and devised a scheme under which the trust would fall outside the charity VAT exemption which meant it would have to charge VAT, but it would be able to reclaim VAT on the build cost. HM Reven­ue and Customs confirmed this was acceptable.

In the meantime, construction costs had increased, and the original design for which detailed planning permission was obtained in June 2013, was unaffordable, and the trust had to start again.

At the same time, South Hams Council expressed doubts about the ability of the trust to complete the build, and demanded a bond of £150,000, which, if the trust ran out of money would be used to complete the pool or demolish it.

The cost of such a bond would have been prohibitive and it looked as though the project was heading for failure again until South Hams Council agreed to accept an offer from the trustees to put up a surety of £75,000.

So the project was back on until, in April this year, South Hams Council decided not to release its funding until it had the result of its Leisure Services Review, expected in September.

Once again, this seemed to signal the end of the project, until a concerted press campaign and support from people and organisations of Dartmouth and district, culminating in a demonstration at Follaton House, Totnes, on May 21, prompted the council to reconsider. The council’s executive committee produced a novel solution – the council would sell the site to the trust for £1, once the trust had signed a fixed price contract for the pool, thus putting the project back on track.

There was one final – and almost fatal – twist in the saga. Although the trust had an email from Kier stating a contract price and confirming it would be fixed for 45 days, in reality until a contract was signed no price was fixed and no sub-contractors were bound to the construction.

By the time the trust met Kier again, a major sub-contractor had gone into liquidation, a new contractor had to be found, which resulted in the contract price escalating by £86,000.

This seemed to be the final straw which ended the dream of an indoor pool.

However, the Hadley Trust, which had provided £50,000 to kick-start the project back in 2010, offered to provide a further £86,000 to allow the project to continue and enable the pool to be built.

Since then, a local resident has generously donated a five-figure sum to improve the specification of the pool.

A turf-cutting ceremony will be held on Sunday, September 6.