Save our pools!
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By Rebecca Taylor
Posted: Tue Jun 20 2006 -
London‘s municipal baths were once the pride of the capital but, alongside newer council facilities, many have been reduced to crumbling shells. This summer, Time Out is launching a campaign to save the capital‘s swimming pools. We‘ll be looking at how our sporting legacy has been reduced to such a sorry state, examining why, in the lead-up to 2012, provision of pools in London lags behind most other major European cities, and asking what can be done about it.
An Early Day Motion on pool provision is going through Parliament. Download our 'Save Our Pools' petition and send it to your local MP. You can find their address at www.parliament.uk. For a list of MPs yet to sign the motion click here.
What’s the problem?
The capital’s swimming pools are mired in a crisis brought on by years of neglect. Seven of the capital’s pools have closed in the last 12 years, 16 more face imminent closure or an uncertain future. Feature continues
AdvertisementWhy has it become so bad?
With the demise of the GLC in 1986, the responsibility for the upkeep of pools fell to local councils. But with pressures on council budgets mounting over the years, swimming pools and lidos have been left to fall into disrepair or simply closed down.
What is the government doing about it?
The government insists it is ploughing money into pools – London has received approximately £50 million over the last ten years from Sport England, with another £150 million being spent on the new Olympics aquatic centre in Stratford. This year has also seen three pools open in London. But experts agree there is still a massive investment shortage.
‘With estimated costs of modernising London’s sports facilities and swimming pools of £550m [Jan 2003 figures; 2006 prices are likely to be much higher], Sport England cannot alone hope to meet that investment need,’ said Sport England’s Shareena Ali.
‘We’ve had nearly 30 years without investment,’ says Liz Hughes, from the London Pools Campaign. ‘If you look at Haggerston pool in Hackney – closed in 2000 – repair costs have shot up to £21m.’Last week a national report by the Audit Commission found that swimming pools had been left crumbling, with much of the blame lying with incompetent councils for allowing the situation to deteriorate, as well as the government, whose efforts to tackle health problems were inadequate. According to the report, investment into sports facilities had remained at the same level for the past ten years, while the cost of repairs had nearly doubled in that time.
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1 comment
I am a big fan of the London Swimming Pool Campaign and your campaign as part of that - certainly putting the pressure on decision makers and residents is important. But, in the interests of accuracy and good public information I wondered if you could also do the following:
1. Encourage people to swim as well, advertising the different events that go in pools will help people see there are a variety of activities they can do.
2. Recognise that when it comes to new pool, there are very few occasions where a pool separate from other leisure facilities does not make either economic or common sense - we need to put all leisure facilities under one roof to get people to participate.
2. let the public know the reality of the cost of pools, as far as I know Highbury pool is one of the only in the country to break even - with non-domestic energy rates going up 60% this has a huge impact of their costs (new pool needs CHP plants!)
3. 15 minutes can mean in another borough, don't use the borough boundaries to make cheap campaign points, people do not constrain their leisure uses by the borough boundaries so nor should this campaign ... however this does raise a good question about the participation in, cost, use and promotion of the London leisure card - a key campaign point on its own.
4. When you look at the state of pools don't forget disabled accessibility.
5. Do reflect the cultural issues around swimming, especially for Muslim women and help the debate about how we can address this.
6. Do address the fact the swimming lessons for kids in London are oversubscribed - can the private pools help. Parents who swim make sure their kids swim but non-swimming parents need encouragement too.
7. Do check your facts. Do not believe an individual campaign group that a pool is closing without checking the facts - for example there are and never have been any plans to close ironmonger row, but we do want to provide more leisure offers around it. There are no plans to close the Archway Pool, but if a developer comes on board we have the chance to create a unique leisure facility.
8. In the same vein, sometimes a council may close one facility in order to create a new facility that is better. Don't class this as a closure and be wary of your campaigning on such occasions, we cannot provide unlimited pools and sometimes in order to provide something new and netter you need to close what it will replace.
9. Proper funding: there needs to be some national campaigning here - swimming is a life skill as well as good exercise. The locations of the legacy pools after 2012 will be important.
10. Do think about clubs - they need water space, but every time they take over the use of a pool for club activity this takes the pool away from general public use - sometimes there is a conflict - yet there are many new pools that are closed after hours, in private locations which we should campaign to have open.
11. London-wide body : my suggestion is a consortium of councils (through the ALG to do this) The mayor of London will never take responsibility for direct decisions on this matter as unless he has the access to the funds that go with it will be too controversial for the mayor to take on.