AN internationally renowned artist has donated a piece of his work to campaigners fighting to safeguard the future of a historic outdoor swimming pool.

AN internationally renowned artist has donated a piece of his work to campaigners fighting to safeguard the future of a historic outdoor swimming pool.

Ken Farrow has given an oil painting of Framsden Mill to the Broomhill Pool Trust in Ipswich.

Mr Farrow, who now lives in Australia but was born in the town and learnt to swim at the lido, hopes it can now be auctioned off to help raise funds to refurbish the ageing facility, which closed in 2002.

Ipswich Borough Council has already pledged £1m towards the cost of repairs, while there will also be a contribution from the Heritage Lottery Fund, but campaigners still need to secure more finances.

Mark Ling, from the Broomhill Pool Trust, said: “Ken got in touch with us originally through our website and we're obviously extremely pleased he did.

“It's a very generous offer and it's a beautiful painting. The problem we have now is that we are not experts in auctions so if anyone has any ideas on how we could go about it we would be extremely grateful if they could get in touch.

“It's important to keep Broomhill in the public eye because although we have a lot of funding in place we can't afford to be complacent.

“We're hopefully going to appoint an operator for the pool in October but it could still take another two years for everything to go through, so there's still work to be done.”

Anybody who thinks they might be able to help the trust with the auction can contact Mr Ling via the group's website at: www.savebroomhillpool.org .