ENTHUSIASTIC young swimmer Michael Tansley of Malmesbury, made sure he made a splash at the town's new swimming pool when he won a competition to be the first to take a swim.

Michael's name was drawn from hundreds of entries in the competition organised by North Wiltshire Leisure, which asked people to complete a questionnaire about what they wanted to see at the pool.

The adult winner was Fiona Iliffe-Moon, from Luckington, who won a mountain bike.

Michael was the first to try out the pool at a special session earlier this month, and he was joined by invited guests.

Although the new pool does not open until January 12, a programme has already been drawn up.

Work began on the £3 million four-lane pool at the Activity Zone Leisure Centre at Bremilham Road in October last year.

The pool is 25m long and 8.5m wide and the foundations required 50 tonnes of steel to reinforce the concrete.

For environmental reasons the structure has a wooden frame. There is also a state of the art movable floor that will allow both toddlers and adults to use the pool.

The town's swimming club, the Malmesbury Marlins, will use the new pool for training and for galas.

Plans for an indoor pool to replace the open air pool on Old Alexander Road have been in the pipeline for 20 years.

The project was resurrected in the mid 1990s when an anonymous benefactor put up £300,000.

The scheme was given the go-ahead in August last year when North Wiltshire District Council received a £1.2m lottery grant, half the cost of the pool. The district council put in £865,000 and £15,000 came from Malmesbury Town Council and other parish councils.