Bath & North East Somerset Council has announced its new leisure facilities for Bath and Keynsham will feature a new teaching pool for each location.
Both pools will provide facilities with warmer water (30-32°c) than the main pools at a depth of between 90cm and one metre. This is the standard depth and temperature for a pool of this type.
At present neither location has a dedicated teaching pool for young children to learn to swim.
The pools will be designed in partnership with Sport England to ensure they meet the accessibility guidelines as far as reasonably practical within the constraints of the refurbishments.
Councillor Martin Veal (Conservative, Bathavon North) Cabinet Member for Community Services, said: “Bath & North East Council is committed to providing excellent leisure facilities in both the Bath and Keynsham leisure centres.
“During these extremely challenging financial times we must deliver leisure facilities that support all people to live healthy lifestyles and are financially viable. The new teaching pools will provide facilities for young people to learn to swim in a safe and controlled environment. Currently, neither the Bath, or Keynsham, sites offer dedicated teaching pools.”
The announcement comes after careful and detailed consideration of requests from the Warm Water Inclusive Swimming and Exercise (WWISE) group for dedicated warm water pools with a temperature of at least 32 degrees at a depth of 1.2 or 1.3 metres.
Councillor Veal added: “As part of the refurbishments at both sites we have carefully considered the requests of the WWISE group. However, they are not financially viable based on costs and anticipated usage numbers.
“We have consulted with a range of specialists, including the Amateur Swimming Association, Sport England, our leisure partners Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) along with independent advisors.
“None of these organisations were supportive of the inclusion of warm water pools within the leisure refurbishments.
“It would have also resulted in the withdrawal of £1.5 million in funding from Sport England, as club and competition swimming in Bath would no longer be possible.
At a meeting on Monday 16th January 2017 Bath & North East Somerset Council’s Communities, Transport and Environment Policy, Development and Scrutiny Panel supported proposals to:
- Continue to heat the main pool at Bath Sports and Leisure Centre to 30°C on Thursday mornings as per the current arrangements. Review this practice in the light of current afternoon usage and the new provision of the teaching pools.
- Ensure the teaching pools are made available for public use and for groups to book, including groups of disabled people.
- Disabled access to both Bath and Keynsham leisure centres and, in particular the pools, to be improved as part of the refurbishment works.
- Teaching pools to be provided at a depth of 90cm – 1m which will be suitable for children to learn to swim in a safe depth.
Bath & North East Somerset Council added that they never made any commitment to provide any other type of warm water facility, a number of which are available elsewhere in the area.
