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.

At least you still have the option, our local authority has just closed 3 council pools in our city.

I'm in Manchester and public swimming sessions are free for under 16's and over 265's. Adult swimming sessions are £3.92 for one adult and child with the Manchester Active card.We also have fantastic Active sessions including water aerobics and Funaquatics that are £1.20 per session. The Funaquatics session is for one adult and one child.

This is what you get for having a Labour party mayor in greater manchester.

If people would wake up and smell the coffee and stop voting conservative we could have more like this elsewhere.

We used to have a scheme locally where you paid £5 for the summer holidays for unlimited swimming for kids. But that was when the pool was actually council run.

£3.10 per child per session here. I pay monthly to go lane swimming - £20 and unlimited access to everything bar classes. No idea what’s going on there to be honest Op.

It used to cost £2 or something per person but that was over 10 years ago

Yep sounds about right, we’re in Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire borders. It’s shocking

The shift for councils to outsource swimming pools to the likes of Better etc has resulted in massive decline in availability of public pools imho.

There would be an even bigger decline if they hadn’t taken them over. My parents and my
hometowns council hung on. Even when I worked for the leisure services 10+ years ago the pools haemorrhaged money because of the subsidises on swimming. It’s not just costly it’s extortionate how much they cost to run. Now that council has had to closed every single leisure centre and pool as they can’t afford to run anything anymore. Closed full stop. They’re looking into take overs but we know one will go to a private bidder so no pool in that town once they get their hands on it.

The UK is and always has been exceptionally poor at long term investment
100% agree with this. One of the leisure centres closed still had £1.5m debts to settle with one of those companies that installs the clip and climb / soft play. Soft play was hardly ever open and ridiculously cheap when it was. Beyond short sighted.

I can tell you that’s a very idealistic view of a Labour council, as I said above my parents hometown has just had to close every single leisure facility in the borough, and they’re a Labour stronghold.

Our council has been doing a special rate of £1 for kids all summer, even at the lido. I've really appreciated it.

I can tell you that’s a very idealistic view of a Labour council, as I said above my parents hometown has just had to close every single leisure facility in the borough, and they’re a Labour stronghold.

Some boroughs are less self sufficient than others. The wealth divide in the UK is far too big and there needs to be central government action to subsidise poorer areas that can't afford to improve service provision from the local council tax/ business rate income.

Otherwise you get wealthy councils in wealthy areas with money pouring in from well off residents and thriving local businesses, and poor councils serving deprived populations who need the services far more but need subsidy to afford it.

A family of 5 is £10 at our local leisure centre. It is weirdly the only family ticket they do. £3.60 per adult and £2.60 per child otherwise.

I used to pay £1 for the aqua disco on a Saturday. That was a good 20 years ago. It's £3.40 now, don't think that's too bad!

For us, swimming lessons at the local leisure centre are £27 a month - but they've no space.

The private hire pools which allow lessons are in small groups of 4 so work out a lot more expensive at £49 a month.

For us to book a public swim slot at the leisure centre, it's £19 per booking.

To hire a pool out privately, £35 for an hour.

With the cost of everything else increasing, I find it hard to justify going swimming when I know that school lessons will be available in the future, and those need to be paid for too.

With the cost of everything else increasing, I find it hard to justify going swimming when I know that school lessons will be available in the future, and those need to be paid for too

Oh be careful OP - someone got their bottom handed to them on a plate for expecting school lessons! https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4666329-to-not-want-to-pay-for-school-swimming-lessons

School lessons are very cursory, if they happen at all.

Luckily, the school lessons in my area are actually quite good as they're the leisure centre lessons but at a reduced rate of £15 per month.

Family members DC have all learnt to swim that way.

I hope I'm still swimming when I'm 265 . I might even move to Manchester to do it for free.

£3 a child at ours. Adults are more pricey but a swimming membership is something like £25 a month for adults if you're going to go a lot.

The thing is all activities are expensive. Softplay, cinema, trampolining, bowling all cost more than swimming.

My you get will start swimming lessons this term. £8 per lesson which includes a minibus ride to and from nursery.
8 years ago I was paying £55 for 10 lessons so in comparison I suppose this is expected but it does feel steep

We’re lucky in that we have a Lido as well as a council run indoor leisure centre. It’s became too expensive at £7.70 for an adult or £21.00 for a family. This year they did a “ quick dip” for £4 adult or £2 kids for 45 mins.. Half an hour is long enough on a chilly summer day and they didn’t mind people staying in if it was quiet.

They used to do cold water swims over the winter too which was a fun but at £6.50 was really expensive for the 20 minutes I managed.

I was in the UK last year and wanted to take the children swimming and it just seemed impossible - had to prebook and there was hardly any sessions available as most were special sessions not normal swimming and they were all so expensive. Just didn't bother in the end :( What has happened to pools in the UK??
I'm in a pretty expensive country but even here swimming isn't ridiculously expensive, has barely gone up in price since I moved here - 6 euros for adults before 14:30, 7,50 after, 3,70 for children (under 5s free) and concessions (pensioners, students, disabled, unemployed and conscripts) is 4,50 before 14:30 and 5,50 after. And there's no fuss about booking sessions or anything like that, you just turn up and swim, special sessions are only on Mondays when its closed to everyone else. Have noticed the sauna isn't as hot as it used to be so maybe they're saving money by lowering the temperature.