Sir — Your columns often, and most usefully, provide opportunities for correspondents to alert readers to failures or inadequacies in the provision of services. May I draw your readers' attention to a service that is working well but seems to be almost completely unpublicised and is consequently little known about?

This is a public swimming pool (no less public than Hinksey Pool or the Ferry Centre) just outside Peers School.

I went there last Sunday morning. The temperature of the water was such it was a pleasure to go in, rather than a grit-your-teeth-and-take-the-plunge experience.

The staff were friendly, rather than believing their only function is to enforce restrictions, and the pool was not over- crowded, indeed for a short time I had it to myself.

Some members of the public may have been put off using this facility because of rumours of closure, but I have now been reassured that announcement of its death was premature.

It will stay open until at least 2010. For owners of a 'slice' card entry is free.

The only user to whom I would not recommend the pool above all others in Oxford, is an unsupervised child non-swimmer: there is no 'baby-pool' (though there are, of course, lifeguards in constant attendance). In short, the facility is 'peerless'.

Andrew Burchardt, Wolvercote