Mother Julie Collins has spoken about the poor hygiene at Blackbrook Leisure Centre and Spa

These pictures show grime, hair and other dirt in changing areas for the swimming pool at Blackbrook Leisure Centre and Spa, in Taunton, which have appalled Julie Collins.

Mrs Collins, from Galmington, says her children “feel dirty” after using the pool and its facilities and claims it is an issue she has raised with management a number of times.

Since the pool opened at a cost of around £6m in July, 2016, it was closed temporarily for health reasons the following November and due to a mechanical fault last May.

Mrs Collins, who takes her daughter Anna, six, and son James, four, swimming at the centre, said: “At the busiest times it never seems clean and my children don’t like getting out of the shower.

“I am a registered nurse and take infection control quite seriously, like any parent would. It makes the children and I feel quite dirty.

“It’s been like it since I have been going there which must be about a good year or so. It is a brand new, purpose-built centre and it’s a shame because they are letting the standards of hygiene drop and it does reflect.”

Unlike other pools she uses in Crewkerne and Tiverton, she claims Blackbrook does not provide plastic shoe covers and, as a result, dirt from outside is dragged across the floors inside the centre.

She added: “They aren’t actually encouraging you to put anything protective on and, as a result, the gulleys and changing areas are slippery, dirty, dusty and hairy.

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“You can’t expect people to walk around in conditions like that in the 21st century. I just think it would be good if they got their act together and employed an external company to do the cleaning on a full-time basis.”

She also claims much of the cleaning is left to the lifeguards, that shower areas “smell like urinals” at times and that nappy bins are not emptied regularly enough.

The anticipated opening of the pool and leisure centre took place on Saturday, July 23, and replaced the facility in St James Street.

The state-of-art centre boasts a 13m teaching pool, a 25m main pool, as well as a viewing area, ‘coffee corner’ and a changing village and a spa, which boasts a range of therapies.

However, customers were thanked for their patience in May last year after the pool was closed for a day after a mechanical fault was discovered in the extraction systems.

And the pool area was closed in November 2016 after vomiting and diarrhoea bacteria was found in the pavilion.

Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), which operates under the brand, Better, and runs the site on Taunton Deane Borough Council’s behalf, said an immediate review of the cleaning processes will be carried out after seeing these images.

A GLL spokeswoman said: “GLL takes all complaints of this nature extremely seriously and will be undertaking an immediate review of cleaning processes in the pool area and changing rooms at Blackbrook Leisure Centre and Spa.

“We are already in the process of recruiting four new lifeguard positions, which will improve the staffing resources available to us.  We can confirm that it is part of a lifeguard’s role to be responsible for some aspects of cleaning, however we also employ external cleaning contractors at the centre.”