THE Flamingo Pool and the Axe Valley community are celebrating after winning a £50,000 People’s Millions lottery grant.

Following several weeks of high profile campaigning, urging pool users, volunteers and the community to vote for the Flamingo Pool, followed by a public vote on Tuesday, November 25, the Flamingo Pool was successful.

The Flamingo Pool appeared on ITV television, defeating a Truro-based care home, and gaining 13,781 votes, the third most votes in the entire country, despite only receiving the telephone numbers on voting day.

Dana Haydon-Sycamore, press officer and fundraiser for the Flamingo Pool, said: “All of our hard work has really paid off.

“Now we can really help to change lives in our community.”

The pool released a series of videos to support the campaign from Neil Parish MP, Gill Mellor, head chef at River Cottage, Tim Maddams of Green Sauce & River Cottage and Jack Ward Magic – as well as receiving a visit from Winnie the fish eagle of Xtreme Falconry.

The £50,000 will enable the Flamingo Pool to install an Aquagym and train staff to an even higher level in order to teach the elderly, disabled and those in rehabilitation, with medical conditions or mobility challenges.

Differing from a land-based gym, due to the natural properties of buoyancy and zero impact, the Aquagym enables those that cannot work out on land to exercise safely in the water.

Sessions will also be available for those who want to work out for fun.

The news was given to Flamingo Pool’s manager, Steve Buxton, last Wednesday morning but he was unable to tell anyone until the cheque presentation had aired on ITV around 6pm that evening.

He said: “It was really difficult not to share the news, but somehow we managed it.

“We’re overwhelmed and having served the community for 16 years, the community has served and supported us, which in turn will enable us to help the community.”

He added his thanks to everyone, his team, volunteers, local businesses and those who voted.

The Flamingo Pool is a self-funded charity brought to reality by a massive community effort to raise funds following a lottery reversal of decision to fund the project.

Local residents pulled together to ensure that the project became more than just a pipe dream.

A steering committee was formed and worked tirelessly to find funding for the 25m pool and the country’s first 6m2 hydrotherapy pool open to the public.

It has been at the heart of the community ever since.