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Missed the feeling of that perfect cannonball? Or powering through the lengths à la Adam Peaty? Well, you may be in luck soon, because Tower Hamlets council are dipping a tentative toe into a floating lido project on the Thames.
The main advocate of the floating pontoon is the councillor for the Canary Wharf ward, Andrew Wood, who worries that the Isle of Dogs is becoming too densely built-up and that potential commuters need more incentives to come into the office. He says that Tower Hamlets Council has a war chest of £500 million which he believes should be invested into public projects such as the lido.
Developers Thames Baths have proposed the plans, which Councillor Wood is a huge fan of. The warm and filtered body of water would give keen swimmers access to a larger portion of the Thames, which Thames Baths CEO Chris Romer-Lee explains can only be a good thing, improving health and wellbeing, with huge room for expansion; Romer-Lee explains that the central London portion of the Thames is London’s largest public space, approximately seven times bigger than Hyde Park.
Thames Baths recently ran a Kickstarter campaign, assessing potential sites where the outdoor lidos could be located; it raised £142,000 over the 30-day campaign and attracted more than 1,200 backers. Thames Baths’ formal proposal has not yet been submitted to the local council, as they are still gauging public interest in their idea to ‘re-establish an intimate and playful link between Londoners and this historic lifeblood of the city’, but I tell you what, we’re definitely here for some outdoor breaststroke.
Follow the story on Thames Baths’ Twitter.