Swim Group to review provision of facilities

Swimming provision and the role that public facilities play will be a focus for the national Swim Group in 2018.

The Swim Group is made up of representatives from across the sector. It has already made significant progress to improve the quality of swimming and water safety sessions in schools following work with the Department for Education and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

The Group will now also focus on ensuring access to facilities remains on the Government’s national and local agenda.

Access to facilities is key

Swim Group chair, Jane Nickerson, said: “Maintaining access to facilities is key for ensuring our children are able to learn how to swim and be safe in the water and our athletes can train to compete.

“In the current climate there are lots of pressures on local authorities and hard decisions need to be made, but we can’t let our pool stock be the scapegoat.

“The Swim Group will be working with partners to accurately map where our pools are, and help define the role local council facilities play in keeping communities healthy and active.

“Last year we launched the ground-breaking Love Swimming campaign which sees partners from across the sector join together to promote the fun, love and benefits of spending time in the water. This campaign is changing behaviours and encouraging people to swim, we now need to ensure there are places for them to go.”

The Swim Group meets quarterly and was set up to provide the strategic direction for swimming in England by promoting partnerships and best practice throughout the sector.