A PENSIONER who suffers with psoriasis has praised a campaign to bring brine baths back to Droitwich due to the medical benefits they offer.

Mary Rousell, who lives in Dorchester, visited the old Droitwich baths near St Richard's House at least twice a year for over 20 years before they closed in 2008, because brine helped soothe her skin condition.

An outline planning application to erect a brine bath building at Lido Park was submitted to Wychavon District Council (WDC) by Save Our Brine Baths (SOBBs) earlier this year.

SOBBs, a newly registered Community Interest Company, was originally formed by town councillor Bill Moy as a campaign group after Droitwich Spa Brine Baths was closed by BMI healthcare 10 years ago.

Mrs Rousell, 74, said she “would be over the moon” if the plans, which have received county council backing in the shape of a £5,000 grant, come to fruition because she’s found no other treatment as effective.

Worcester News:

Mary Rousell

Her friends in Worcester first encouraged her to try the brine baths out, but on learning the baths had closed, Mrs Rousell said: “I could have cried, I was so bitterly disappointed.”

“It’s a wonderful feeling, because you’re so relaxed,” she said of the brine.

“Psoriasis is different to eczema – you get big red scabby bits that itch like billy-o all over your body. One time it covered me completely.

“The brine baths would calm it down and take down the irritation, and I would have two or three night’s sleep undisturbed. Usually, I’m up in the night with it.

“Sometimes if I’m sitting in a warm room having a meal, I have to get up and go outside to get comfortable.”

Mrs Rousell, who was born in Manchester and lives with husband John, said she has “Dead Sea salts by the hundred weight”, which she puts in her bath water, but while the “packets cost an arm and a leg", it only gives a few hours’ relief.

“Moving around in the brine baths would give a lot longer relief,” she explained.

Visiting the baths along with her husband and friends from Worcester, Mrs Rousell said they used to meet people with other ailments who benefited from the brine.

She said one man in particular with Arthritis would “leave looking like a spring chicken” – due to the “intense warmth” of the baths which “really gets in to the joints and loosens them up”.

“There’s so much salt in the water, it makes it far more buoyant.

“In fact, it’s so buoyant that it was difficult to stand up in them. You just bob up like a cork and literally just float around,” she said.

“Swimming was dangerous, because of splashing. But once you got the hang of it, it was almost like riding a bicycle, bobbing around.”