Submission from London Pools Campaign

for GLA Scrutiny Committee 18th September 2003

 

http://londonpoolscampaign.ground-level.org/glasubmission

 

contents:

Submission from London Pools Campaign................................... 1

Submission from London Pools Campaign................................... 3

for GLA Scrutiny Committee 18th September 2003........................ 3

London Pools Campaign................................................................................................. 3

Historical Perspective................................................................................................... 3

How many pools has London lost?............................................................................ 3

How many people swim?.......................................................................................... 3

And what about school swimming?........................................................................... 4

World City Comparison................................................................................................ 4

Effect on local pools of Commonwealth Games in Manchester......................................... 5

Swimming Success.......................................................................................................... 6

Threat Posed by the Olympics........................................................................................ 6

Why Swim..................................................................................................................... 6

Bringing swimming back to London................................................................................. 7

What we would like for Londoners from the Olympics..................................................... 8

Fund of £100 million for London’s crumbling pools.................................................... 8

Removal of barriers to swimming for Londoners from ethnic minorities........................ 8

Removal of barriers to swimming for Londoners with disabilities.................................. 8

Conclusion................................................................................................................... 9

 

Submission from London Pools Campaign

for GLA Scrutiny Committee 18th September 2003

London Pools Campaign

 

The London Pools Campaign was set up following a visit to Marshall St at London Open House last year, when pool campaigners in Westminster and Hackney realised that the issues they were facing were identical despite the very different local authorities they were dealing with.

 

Since then eight more campaigns have joined. Every time we receive any publicity, we receive emails from swimmers all over London and beyond asking for help in drawing attention to the state of the pools they are using.

 

See separate sheet for details of the individual pool campaigns.

 

Historical Perspective

How many pools has London lost?

There is no standard way of counting pools.  No-one knows for sure how many pools have closed in the last few years.  Some lists count lidos and school pools, some count actual tanks as opposed to pool buildings.  As a result of this, the government has set up a working group to write the Doomsday book of sports facilities in the UK, but it’s not ready yet.

 

Public Pools

A trawl through the local authority sites in London produced the table included in Appendix A – which is not definitive, but gives a comparison with a Sport England list of local authority pools from 1993.  This shows that on balance seven public pools have been lost in London in the last 10 years. This does not include, for example, the loss of the 33 meter tank at London’s Seymour Baths.

 

School Pools

Noel Winter, Facilities Manager at the ASA says “in fact the biggest loss has been in the number of school pools which offered some public access and took up the excess from the public pools.  We don’t know how many have been lost in London, but in the whole of the UK the numbers have approximated halved from about 5000 in the 70’s to 2,500 today”.

 

Lidos

London has 12 open lidos and 27 closed lidos.  26 of the closed lidos were built in the 20’s and 30’s and most of these closed in the late 80’s following their transfer to local authority care (alongside the parks, but without extra funding) after the demise of the GLC.  The first lido, amazingly, located at Bath St near Old St, opened in 1743 and closed in 1850.

 

How many people swim?

In it’s investigation into swimming in 2000, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found “Swimming, and its wide variety of disciplines, is the nation's most popular physical sporting activity, with nearly 12 million people swimming regularly, and an estimated 80 million visits to public sector pools a year. Swimming is the most popular sport for girls, and the second most popular for boys, with 50 per cent of children regularly participating.”  

 

 

Participation in swimming has remained broadly stable rising from 13 – 15% in the years from 1987 – 1990 and then stabilised at that rate until 1996.  (Sport England “Trends in Adult Participation in Sport 1987 – 1996).   But this hides the question of where people are swimming.

 

Since public pools are closing it is not surprising that more people who can afford it are joining private gyms with pools and swimming there.  There are no figures for this, but since participation rates are stable, and membership of private health clubs is rising, the number of swims in public pools must be falling.  

 

If swimming is not to become an exclusive sport, the stock of public pools must be better looked after.

And what about school swimming?

It is a National Curriculum requirement that children should be able to swim 25m by age 11.  Yet the Times Education Supplement/CCPR report of August 2003 shows that 3 in 10 children leave primary school unable to carry out the most basic survival techniques in water.  Nationally more than 100,000 children leave primary school each year unable to swim.

 

In some areas of London city areas the situation is proportionally worse.  A recent survey by Hackney’s Learning Trust found that in some South Hackney 70 – 80% children were leaving primary school unable to swim.  See Appendix 3.

 

Being unable to swim not only robs children of a life skill which could be of enormous health benefit and enjoyment, it also bars their entry to many other sports – like diving, canoeing and sailing.  And of course even from the land, being unable to swim can be dangerous – last year 50 children died from drowning.

 

Schools quote time taken to travel to pools as one of the main obstacles to teaching swimming.  A round trip of an hour can mean a 30 minute swimming lesson takes 2.5 hours out of the school day. 

 

Allowing local pools to close is only going to make this situation worse.

 

Our Olympic champion swimmers for 2012 are currently between about 8 and 14 years old.   Just the age group that is being failed in their swimming tuition today.  If we don’t give the widest possible access to pools to these children we will be competing at a disadvantage. And overall participation will decline as we move to a population base that never learnt to swim.

 

World City Comparison

With nine candidates for the 2012 Olympic Games, Paris and New York are the most similar to London in economic and social development and standing amongst world top cities.

 

Effect on local pools of Commonwealth Games in Manchester

The arrival of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester was associated with a huge publicity machine, which pumped out the message that the games were successful and good for Manchester.  While there is a general consensus that the games were well run and brought benefits to the city, there is also a sense that the other side of the story was not allowed to be told.

 

Some local groups and to our interest local swimmers are less happy with the effects of the games.  The first warning was when a group arranging a protest against the games was threatened with legal action.  Then the Belle Vue Athletics track was dug up to make new hockey pitches.  The local thriving club and volunteer coach were then homeless for a year until they were offered a new home in the new stadium.  But by this time the club was decimated.

 

In the run up to the opening of the new aquatic centre in September 2001, which replaced a smaller university pool, two other local pools were closed.  The Didsbury pool (3 miles from the new pool) had community access but was run by the university who are partners in the new pool, and decided they no longer needed the Didsbury pool.  A local trust tried to take it over, but the pool remains closed.

 

Gorton Tub (2 miles from the new pool) also closed in the summer of 2001, despite a vigorous campaign by the local community, as the local authority concentrated its resources on the new aquatic centre.

 

The campaign to re-open Victoria Baths (now the winner of BBC2’s Restoration program) also suffered from the shift towards the new Commonwealth Games pool.  They lost the university as a potential partner and felt that the Council’s resources and interest were focussed on the games to the exclusion of all other sporting interests.

 

The new aquatic centre is trying to serve a whole city.  Local swimming clubs complain that while this is fine for the children whose parents are able and prepared to drive them across the city 2 or 3 times a week, other children are excluded.   Apart from the iniquity of the situation, this is very short-sighted thinking as it is through the broadest possible entry to the sport that future gold medals are won.

 

In general cities need local facilities because inner city dwellers often don’t have cars – and are discouraged from doing so.  This works well while there are local facilities.

 

Swimming Success

In spite of the reduction in facilities the national swimming team has achieved some notable success.  Imagine how much better they could have done with the kind of facilities available in competitor countries.

 

Threat Posed by the Olympics

If London is successful in winning the right to host the London 2012 Olympic Games, new competition-standard pools will be needed in the East of London. These pools will not be funded entirely from new, incremental sources. A whole host of Peters will be robbed to pay Olympic Paul.

 

The Sport England fund, for example, is due to be raided to the tune of £340 million to pay for the Games. A further £410 million will be top-skimmed from the Lottery before it even makes into the Good Causes funds of which sport is one of six.

 

The opportunity cost to London's sporting projects of diverting these funds to the Olympics is some £44 million, since 11% of all Lottery sports funding has made its way to the capital. Of that, £9 million would be likely to accrue to swimming in the city, if the bid fails. Since Lottery funding is never the sole source of funds for capital projects, we can infer that £20 million would be spent on London's pools if we lose the Olympic bid. The London Pools Campaign estimates this would be sufficient to provide the capital funding needed re-open or keep open 6 of the 10 pools currently endangered.

 

Nationally, £80 million of the public's Lottery money will be diverted from swimming, funds that would have been matched almost one for one by local councils and others. These figures are publicly available, from the Lottery and Sport England web sites.

 

Furthermore, the increase in the Mayor's precept to raise £550 million to pay for the Olympics will place further pressure on council leisure and sport spending. Just 10% of that figure could leave London with 10 existing pools saved from closure and pay for a new international-standard 50m pool. Where is the value for money Londoners deserve?

 

The DCMS investigation into swimming 2 years ago found that it would cost £2 billion to repair and restore all the pools in the UK.  This means that instead of having the Olympics we could do up every pool in Britain and have £34 million pounds over for a national football stadium.

 

 

Why Swim

Swimming is unique in being one of the only sports which can be done by anyone at any stage of their life, at any stage of health.  All that is required is a pool and a swimsuit.  It is a truly democratic form of exercise.

 

Regular users of pools in London vary greatly from the old who enjoy the community of a swimming pool, to the infirm who value the possibility of getting some exercise safely, to children who want to have fun splashing, to lane swimmers, to people just wanting to get healthy again.

 

For many of the inner city children pools represent vital open space – areas where they can safely play.  We believe that all children should learn how to swim as it provides them with a crucial life skill, one which will serve them well throughout their lives.  It will help them keep fit as well as keep safe around water (pools, the sea, rivers etc).

 

We continue to campaign to keep inner city pools open because we believe in the crucial importance of this space for health, enjoyment and for the community.

 

 

Bringing swimming back to London

 

To bring swimming back to London we need to reverse the trend of pool closures, improve the swimming teaching given to children and investigate the other obstacles that people find prevent them from participating in swimming.

 

The action London Pools Campaign would like to see is

 

1.     A complete inventory of all the pools/ponds/lidos with public access in London - with an agreement that membership pools are not public access, and that school pools should not be counted according the proportion of time they are actually open to the public.

 

2.     A public and affordable pool within 15 walking distance of all Londoners (i.e. no more than about 0.75 miles away).  We estimate that this accords with Sport England’s old policy of one pool per 30,000 people, and would result in London having 233 public pools (currently 103 in local authority management, plus a few in independent management, plus access to some school pools).  The gap would be tackled by:

 

a.     Stopping pool closures by funding threatened pools

b.     Re-opening pools recently closed

c.     Funding more school pools and stopping their closure

d.     Bringing back into use old bathing ponds and lidos long closed

e.     Bringing in temporary pools

                                                             i.     Tanks like those used at the Barcelona World Championships could be set up in the parks in summer – each costs about £400,000

                                                              ii.     Using buildings temporarily unused as Market Sports did in the buildings around the Spitalfields development

f.      Building new pools

 

3.     An acknowledgment that the current method of funding pools and swimming is not working.  Pools are discretionary budgets in Councils and history shows that this is the first budget to be squeezed when local authorities are under pressure.  The LCC central role in building and maintaining the lidos was continued by the GLC until its closure.  Pools are not safe in the borough’s hands.

 

4.     A London-wide strategy for swimming pools - like for transport it makes no sense for individual local authorities to make decisions about major facilities without regard for people who live very near, but just happen to come under a different local authority.

 

5.     Health funding directed to swimming pools since one of the major benefits in swimming is to the health of those participating.  (This is another disincentive for local authorities since health outcomes are outside their remit).

 

6.     A detailed investigation into the barriers some Londoners experience in participating in swimming – particularly those from ethnic minorities and those with disabilities – and then policies set up to bring about the changes needed.

 

 

What we would like for Londoners from the Olympics

Fund of £100 million for London’s crumbling pools

The Lottery and other money that is earmarked to be moved away from London’s pools is not enough to stop the decline.  Taking this away will hasten trend of pools closures.

 

We would like to see a fund set up with initially £100 million as a direct benefit to Londoners from the Olympics.  While this £100 million would not be enough to counter the long-term effect of neglect over many years to London’s pools, it could provide a ‘first funder’ pot for swimming pools to bid into for the capital funding they so desperately need.  In restoration projects often the most difficult money to raise is the first £1 million – and a dedicated pot of money could help those with large projects to convince other funders of the viability of the project.

 

This fund would help to stop more pool closures and help to bring back into use some of the pools recently closed.

 

It could also provide for a set temporary pools to be bought and set up each summer in London’s larger parks.

Removal of barriers to swimming for Londoners from ethnic minorities

Anyone who swims regularly in London knows there are disproportionately low numbers of people from ethnic minorities in swimming pools.  The statistics from Sport England’s 1999/2000 survey (see Appendix 3) bear this out.  There is a stark contrast between levels of participation and levels of ‘frustrated demand’ – for example only 5% of the sample of Pakistani women went swimming, yet 19% said they would like to swim.  Why are they not going swimming? 

 

One factor for Afro Caribbean people may be a persistent rumour that black people have heavier bones and are disadvantaged at swimming.  Greg McNeill, swimming coach at Clissold Leisure Centre in Hackney, says he is asked about this approximately once a month by both parents and teachers.  He offers the following extract from a letter from a parent as typical:

 

[X] “was talking to a teacher yesterday about swimming and she said that it was very noticeable that Afro Caribbean people were not naturally good swimmers and that you see very few at swimming baths. She was told that it was due to different bone densities and they actually swim far lower in the water so it is much more difficult for them”.

 

The swimming coach’s response is that there are amazingly few naturally good swimmers.

 

The London Olympic bid sells London as a multi-cultural city, so it would seem appropriate that this opportunity should be taken to find out about and remove the barriers for London’s ethnic minorities to participate in swimming.

 

Removal of barriers to swimming for Londoners with disabilities

Since London would also be hosting the Para-Olympic games it seems appropriate that some of the legacy funding be used to improve accessibility for London’s disabled swimmers.  In Sport England’s 2002 Report “Adults with a Disability and Sport” they found that swimming was the sport adults with a disability who participated in sport would most like to do more often.  And swimming was also the sport that most adults with a disability would like to take up as an additional sport.

 

Barriers quoted by participants in this research were most often health concerns, but lack of money stopped 10% of those questioned from participating more in swimming.

 

 

 

Conclusion

We would like to see the Olympics leaving a tangible legacy for Londoners in bringing a turn-around in the decline of London’s pools.  We’d like people to look back on the 2012 Olympics in the same way we do at the LCC’s Lido building program in the 20’s and 30’s – as a time when something imaginative was done which benefitted millions of ordinary Londoners.  The victory of Vicotoria Baths in BBC2’s recent Restoration program shows the enormous popular support for bringing back public pools.  What could be a greater legacy for London than a pool building and restoring program? 

 
 

Appendix 1

London Pools Campaign is made up of campaigners from the following closed pools and those with uncertain futures

 

Marshall Street - 1930s building, originally with 2 pools ­ one with white marble lining and glass roof.  Closed since 1997 for refurbishment and still waiting for a properly funded plan to be accepted by Westminster Council. 

 

Haggerston Pool - built 1903.  Edwardian Pool Hall.  Closed 2000 by Hackney Council on safety grounds after they had allowed the pool building to decay.  Now needs £5 million to refurbish.

 

London Fields Lido - closed 17 years ago – 50 meter pool mentioned in plans for Olympics.  Determined campaigners stood in front of the bulldozers and stopped Hackney Council’s attempts to demolish it.

 

Brockwell Lido – also known as ‘Brixton Beach’.  Lambeth Council is no longer willing to subsidise this historic 1930’s 50meter outdoor facility – much loved and used by the locals.  Hope for future depends on transfer to alternative management.

 

Poplar Baths – closed 15 years ago when was temporarily transferred to Docklands Development Corporation as space to train builders to work on Docklands.  Local community understood pool would be returned in better state – but in fact the builders filled the pools with concrete and the building is now derelict.

 

York Hall – famous for boxing as well as swimming.  Tower Hamlets council recently announced proposals to knock it down to build flats.  Big campaign taking place backed by boxing aristocracy.

 

Swiss Cottage Pool – pool well known to swimmers across London.  Now demolished by Camden Council to build 169 flats on top of a much reduced sports facility.

 

Hampton Pool – Richmond Council tried to close this down this outdoor pool 17 years ago and got to the point of piling up the rubble in the car park.  Local people organized themselves, took over the pool and have been running it ever since.  Now struggling to find money for major repairs.

 

Eltham Lido - first opened as a pool in 1914, the lido buildings were added in 1936.  Closed in the late 1980’s a long local campaign came up with a strong business proposal to take on the lido but was turned down.  Future very uncertain – urgent action is needed here as there are plans to turn the lido into tennis courts.

 

Janet Adegoke Pool  - closed on the 28th April 2003.  Hammersmith and Fulham borough now has only one public swimming pool.  They are consulting locally on what to rebuild on the site of the Janet Adgoke Pool – possibly a shopping centre – and possibly another pool.

 

 

Other Pools

We have also heard from swimmers in the following threatened pools: Charlton Lido, Kentish Town Baths, Ladywell Baths, Crystal Palace Swimming Pool and Arnos Grove Baths, Enfield.  And from swimmers in the following pools complaining about general state of disrepair Tooting Bec Lido, Pools in the Park, Richmond and Vale Farm, Brent.  And from swimmers in  Parliament Hill Lido (about plans to make the lido shallower) and Hampstead ponds (about limits to opening times). 

 

Appendix 2: Local Authority Pools in London

 

Local Authority

Pools 1993

Pools 2003

Difference

Detail

Barking & Dagenham

3

3

0

 

Barnet

3

3

0

 

Bexley

3

3

0

 

Brent

2

2

0

 

Bromley

4

4

0

 

Camden

3

2

-1

Though Swiss Cottage Centre to open 2005

City of London

3

3

0

 

Croydon

5

4

-1

Croydon Water Palace closed mid 90’s and site sold 1999

Ealing

5

5

0

 

Enfield

4

5

+1

Southbury Leisure Centre opened 2002 – though replaces Southbury Outdoor Pool closed 1990.

Greenwich

6

4

-2

1)Eltham Lido closed early 90’s

2)Plumstead and Woolwich Baths were both closed and replaced by the 1 Waterfront Centre

Hackney

4

3

-1

Haggerston Pool closed 2000

Hammersmith & Fulham

2

1

-1

Janet Adegoke closed 2003 – may be replaced

Haringey

2

2

0

 

Harrow

1

1

0

 

Havering

3

3

0

 

Hillingdon

3

3

0

 

Houslow

5

5

0

 

Islington

4

4

0

 

Kensington & Chelsea

2

2

0

 

Kingston

2

2

0

 

Lambeth

4

3

-1

Brockwell Lido – still open but now run independently – future uncertain

Lewisham

4

4

0

 

Merton