When did swimming become so expensive?

[MyYoniSaysNoni]

Just took ds and one of his friends to local council run pool. Its alright, nothing fancy. But i thought it would be a nice way to burn off some energy and make a change from kicking a ball in the park.

2 kids plus one adult came to £21.

Ds does swimming lessons at a different pool and they've just sent an email that prices are going up from September. I understand that heating the pool must cost a lot, plus staffing, etc. And we're fortunate that we can afford the increase.

But that MN mantra of 'swimming is an essential life skill and all children should have lessons/frequent family trips to the pool' must surely be increasingly out of reach for many many people.

It is getting expensive. Our council lessons are £8 for 30 mins but it's still less expensive than most hobbies. And needs very little kit.

I'm south east England. Have attached the prices (although i now realise i could have saved a whole £1 by doing family of 3)

Swim costs locally.

3 and under free

Ours is £6 an adult and £4 a child, but I still think that’s atrocious

Today I joined a Hotel gym with private pool which is significantly cheaper then paying for 2x swim per week at the local Council pool

I believe the price increases are mostly driven by energy costs - heating a pool is very energy-intensive. Have you got a ‘Better’ centre near you? They manage sites on behalf of councils and tend to be fairly reasonably priced. For example attached is the prices for the Olympic pool in Stratford.

Yanbu.

I have given up on taking DS swimming. There is a stupid system where you can only book 1 of the 3 pools. There is a baby pool you can't swim in, but has fountains and a jacuzzi bit so is fun for older kids too. Then there is the serious lanes pool and the one that DS can stand up in so will practice swimming. The lifeguards don't challenge any of the blokes that skip between the 3 pools but are really difficult with women and kids. I got sick of trying to explain to DS that he can't just go in the baby pool even for 5 minutes. He has ASD. This started during Covid and is now a weird permanent feature.

It costs us £21 for 2 adults and a child for a family swim. You get a discount for swim school but we have been on the waiting list for that for 18 months and counting...

I pay £210 a year. Or it's £3.70 per session for an adult.

£5.60 for adults and £3.60 for children here, council run pool.

It's pretty shit though, and bloody cold - the water and the changing rooms.

We swim at the local school pool. (Private school but gym/pool open to public) we pay £25 for a monthly membership. 2 adults who can take up to four children each! There's adult only swim times and family swim times.
With 5 children I think it's an absolute bargain for swimming. Our council run pool in the city centre is £10pp

£6.50 per person, under 5’s £3

this is for 40mins only.

1 adult, two kids at our local council one is £22 but it does have a wave pool and flume.

Pay for parking and non refundable (tiny) lockers at £1.

It's not a cheap activity.

We get the concessionary rate as we're on benefits. £2.90 per adult and £1.25 per child. So £8.30 for a family of 4. This is a London borough, we go every week.

Our local pool is £4.50 a go and it's amazing. 50 metres plus a separate kids pool and separate slide.

But, generally, yes. Swimming is far too expensive for how important it is. It's not surprising that a quarter of adults in this country don't think they could swim 25 metres.

There's no difference between peak and off peak prices??? So why differentiate 🤔

It's £4 for over 16 and £2.85 where I live. It's more to go to the flumes and floats session but my DC prefers swimming up and down in a lane.

Ours is a 'Better' pool too, bit child prices much higher than a PP.

£7 per adult, £5 per child here. Then £1 non refundable locker and £4 parking. It's cold and generally noisy and busy - not great for nervous learners.

There is a loyalty scheme thing which knocks off 50p per person each time, but you have to pay £10 per child and £15 per adult for those cards, so not massive savings.

Try doing that on a weekly basis and it adds up quickly!

We've actually just started using the private pool attached to a local hall with holiday cottages - certain time slots can be booked privately. All 4 of us for £20, free parking, no lockers, just our family in the pool. Time slots are only 1 hour, but much better for ds to be calmer and feel safer, so more progress is being made. And tbh, probably wouldn't want much longer than that in the pool anyway.

That is expensive.
Mine is adult £5.60 now.
My child gets in free to public swimming because I pay for her to do swimming lessons there so it comes with the package. Thankfully.

Wow! Mine (big SW city, but a shitty area of it) is £6.90 per adult, £2 per child after a recent fee rejig. It was previously £6.90 for standard adults, £3.50 for kids and a wide range of concessionary adult rates (which I made great use of when out of work!) in between.

It is also bloody cold since they swapped to solar heating - but, that clearly keeps ticket costs down (and makes one make good use of the alloted 55 minute swim!), so I'll stop complaining.

£33 a term 🙃

Than an awful lot... midlands ..DD on swimming lessons and gets free swimming anytime...we pay £25 pm for four or five swimming lessons that's through the summer holidays too. Swimming free but if adult comes it £6.40...so she and I swim for £6.40. Clean pool and great shower

My local one is £7.80 adult, £4.80 child, so for the OP would cost £17.40.

The days when councils could afford to subsidise, or had extra income from baths (for those without one at home) have long gone. The contracting out of leisure services is one thing I will not forgive the third term Thatcher government for.

Our local pool is free for under eights.