As industry leaders worry that the “perfect storm” of staffing and chemical shortages and increasing energy costs might result in further closures, dozens of public pools have closed throughout Britain in the last three years.
In the three years leading up to March 2022, 65 pools in 56 districts throughout the four countries were closed permanently or temporarily.
According to information obtained via Freedom of Information requests to UK councils, eight local authorities—from 105 to 97 and from 219 to 211 respectively—in the West Midlands and Scotland lost at least one pool throughout the time.
UKActive, a leisure and swimming organisation, said that centres couldn’t keep up with escalating energy costs and referred to the wave of closures as a “total health and welfare nightmare.”
The cost of heating Britain’s swimming pools is estimated to increase to £1.25 billion this year from £500 million in 2019.
A 2019 analysis predicted that 1,800 of the UK’s more than 4,000 pools will have to go by 2030 because they would be too old and costly to fix. This was even before the energy crisis.
As a result of Covid closures, the issue has only become worse.
The Financial Times was informed by Mark Sesnan, the chief executive of leisure company GLL, which runs 135 locations with public pools, that the scenario was a “horror,” “harder than the Covid problem,” and “an existential danger to swimming.”
Pool closures in Essex, Bedfordshire, and Staffordshire have all been attributed to a lack of chlorine.
‘Two million children learn to swim in our pools every year, and leisure facilities offer 66% of our cancer prehab and rehab treatments, which clearly illustrates that lives are at danger if they shut,’ UKactive’s chief executive Huw Edwards told the BBC.
The government now has a responsibility to assist the existence of our gyms, pools, and leisure centres via a package of financial and legal measures that secures their survival and expansion. “Our members have set forth the evidence to the government,” says the government.
The Local Government Association’s Culture, Tourism, and Sport Board head, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, adding, “Those with lower incomes disproportionately depend on public recreational facilities.”
Swim England’s CEO Jane Nickerson has previously discussed her concerns with Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston.
Swimming is now not feasible without funding, she said, adding that the swimming facilities urgently required a bailout.
“Our big concern is that doors will simply close because owners will discover they can’t afford to operate their pools,” said one operator.
In May, Mr. Huddleston answered to a parliamentary inquiry into the effect that growing energy expenses are having on publicly owned recreation centres like gyms and swimming pools.
According to him, the Department of Culture and Sport “recognised the impact rising energy prices will have on businesses of all sizes,” and Ofgem and the Government are frequently in contact with business associations and suppliers to better understand the difficulties they face and look into ways to protect both consumers and businesses.
The government continues to urge local authorities to invest in leisure facilities since “the continuous duty of providing access to public leisure facilities falls at local authority level.”
‘The government has contributed an unprecedented £1 billion of public money to secure the sustainability of the grassroots, professional sport, and leisure industries,’ a representative for the Department of Culture, Sport, and Media stated.
This includes the £100 million National Leisure Centre Recovery Fund, which helped more than 1,100 swimming pools survive and reopen throughout the nation.
Additionally, since 2017, Sport England, the government’s funding organisation, has given more than £8.5 million to swimming and diving programmes and more than £16 million to Swim England.