public pools should be open later than 5pm on a Saturday

[twoopsie]

I really struggle to get the time to swim. The local pool closes at 10pm during the week and 5pm at the weekend.

Its always pretty busy in the last hour of weekdays and weekends as its lanes.

The running costs for these few hours would easily be made up I'm sure.

Public pools are a right pain to get any swimming done, can never do it in the lunchtime as its either schools or 50+.

Now the kids are in bed I would love to have a 30 main swim then sawna but it closed hours ago

[littleducks]

I swim in private sessions were groups book the pool. Have done so with several groups over the years. It's usually Friday or Saturday evenings as that is when the pool makes no money being open to the public so offers the session for private hire.

[AliMonkey]

I agree. Our local one closes at 4 on Sat and then is available for hire for birthday parties etc. Same on Sun except is then a swimming club. During week it closes at 4 then has swimming lessons. Really annoying when my DC refuse to take lessons but would like to swim after school (and alternative is local gym/pool which costs £150 pm for me and kids which I can't justify paying).

[DeckTheHallsWithBartimaeus]

Is it closed for galas? I had galas most Saturday evenings and the pools were closed a bit before we started in irder to get everything set up.

[twoopsie]

Well it is avaible to hire then, not sure how often that is used though..

Public pools are just so difficult with their timetables

[rookietherednosedreindeer]

I think that because of cuts to public sector funding it must be hard for leisure centres to get the balance right and if they can make money from renting the facilities or they cannot justify keeping the pool open later, then thats sadly what they have to do.

[erin99]

Ours is open until 7.00. After that it's lifeguard training, poolside gets a really good scrub down sometimes, birthday parties or other private hire.

Trouble is, swimming clubs and lifeguard training have to happen sometime in evenings and weekends. It would be worse to have them in the middle of a weekend day. Have you tried a Mon or Friday night? They were always way emptier than Tue-Thu in my lifeguarding days - ancient history now though!

[Theas18]

Our pool is used by a disabled club then lifesaving on Saturday pm

[Malabrigo]

There aren't enough pools. That's what it comes down to. It's practically impossible to have a swim without it being so full that someone is kicking you in the face the whole time.
It's great that kids are learning to swim but it'd be nice to have enough space for them to continue to do so once they're older too. And the rest of us.

[Lurknomoreladies]

It annoys me that public facilities do this, but my not-that-cheap gym and pool only opens 10-4 at weekends which is very restrictive. In fact my local public pools have far better Sunday opening hours.

[arethereanyleftatall]

As an ex swimmer, I can report we had a gala pretty much every Saturday night.

[rainyevening]

This drives me nuts too. Ours closed at 5 on Sunday and a Sunday evening, pre-back to work swim would be the MOST relaxing thing, and also the only time I really have in the weekend.

[amothersplaceisinthewrong]

Ours is closed at this time at the weekends to allow for the Disabled Club and the local swimming club (I assume these local clubs might be a source of future Olympic/parlalympic swimmers....). So whilst it is annoying for me a keen swimmer, I do understand that the council have a duty to all sections of the community. We do have earlybird swimming from 6-8 am 4 days a week in a section of the pool (the other section being for the club swimmers)

[MammaTJ]

You're lucky to even have a public pool! The council decided they could afford to run our local one, so knocked it down a few years ago!

[Gaia81]

It irritates me that the local pools don't seem to coordinate their timetables. So they all have e.g. lane swimming or swimfit on a Tuesday evening. Would be so much more useful if one did Tue, one did Wed and the other Thursday

[BikeRunSki]

If you swim a lot have you looked into joining a private gym with a pool? They are often open longer and are quieter. I only have to use the gym twice a week to break even compared to using the public pool.

[chrome100]

I a agree. Luckily I started working at a university last year so can use their pool which has lane swimming all day from 630am to 10pm except when they have galas. I love it

On another note my lovely public library is now going to close at 3pm on a Sunday. The only time I could ever go was late Sunday afternoon. I'm so sad about that.

[LadyWithLapdog]

I think it's terrible what's happening to public services. Cuts everywhere. I Tried 3 local pools this week for swimming with the kids after school. Not one of them was open for the teaching pool.

We went to an LA Fitness which allows non-member for swimming. Only £3 for the kids though they have to be out of the pool by 5 pm.

The local public ones are beautiful but mostly shut. In fact they seem to be run by private companies.

[twoopsie]

Gosh closing the local pool should be criminal. Mine is owned by the council but rented out to a private company.

Can't help but think if they just cut benefits from rich pensioners they would save billions for essential services

[LadyWithLapdog]

Getting everyone to pay the tax they owe would be an even better start. Such as large companies still tax dodging or loopholing.

[twoopsie]

Well courp tax isnt easy to fix without all countries agreeing, they are trying to tackle it.

I'd much rather my higher rate tax payer millionaire parents had their winter fuel, bus pass and other benifits were removed and they paid Ni.

[ClashCityRocker]

Ours have similarly restrictive opening hours; shut at latest 7pm during the week, and looking at the time table, there are only a couple of hours 'open swim' per day.

They do do lane swimming, but I have only recently learned to swim and am reeeeeaallly slow, so this isn't ideal for me. The only time I can really go is on a Saturday morning.

However, I know they are in danger of shutting down due to funding, which would be a real shame. I do wonder if they haven't quite got the balance of the timetable right to maximise the money coming in.

[Tron123]

A large number of services run by the government have opening times which are only partially available to working people - the very ones whose taxes have paid for the service. Swimming pools, sports centre and libraries all open the day and often shut early, if you are working you have little opportunity to access. cuts have resulted in less access by working people, the very ones who fund the ammenity, which I thinks very bizarre.

[londonrach]

Local pool used for parties, swimming classses for most of saturday.

[crazykat]

Our local pool is even worse. It was re-builr two years ago and was closed the entire summer holidays for 'maintenance'. It's always closed over half term holidays as well. They must lose so much money not having it open when kids are off school. It's madness.