SWIMMING - DROP IN NUMBERS

[Bitterlemon12]

Has anyone seen the news today saying there is a huge drop in the numbers of people going swimming every week. Just want to rant on this! Hardly surprising and not news! The swimming pools in Swindon where I live are expensive, around £5 upwards per swim, per person, and totally run down and freezing cold with repulsive, smelly, disgusting changing rooms. My 2 year old goes purple with the cold and I find it unbearable at times.

If it was free, or say £1 per time I would love to go on a regular basis maybe twice a week but no wonder no one wants to go at the moment!

We must be an anomaly, our pool is packed. Children 8 and under swim free, there is a session for £1 on a Saturday afternoon and a family ticket (2+2 or 1+3) is £5. Sauna is a £1 extra. I take the dcs most weeks.

Our brand new ( 3 year old ) council gym and pool are always busy . They are clean and warm consistently. About £3.50 - £4 a go
The other older leisure centres nearby aren't as popular because they are old and cold.
It's obvious that what drives people's motivation to swimming : it is the cleanliness and warmth. If the council provides good service and a half decent facility, people will come.

Some of your pools sound amazing and have brilliant prices. i mentioned ours earlier in the thread. It is relatively new and encompasses a gym and stuff. Trouble is the small pool is always taken by lessons, goodness knows why they couldn't have planned more than one small pool to allow people to take small children and have lessons at the same time.

way back when, 9 years ago before the new baths were built i used to swim in the old baths. Now an empty shell of a building. Our was lovely. It was terribly run down and the pool was not full size but it was small and friendly and i paid £60 for a full year unlimited swimming. i swam nearly every day doing my 50 lengths all through my pregnancy as well as attending free aquanatal classes. The new pool should have made things better, all it did was make it unaffordable.

Our local council pool has ridiculous limitations. It's impossible. Swim clubs- take over the whole pool after school every weekday, when you can take your own kids. Weekends there the place is rammed basically parents take their kids into the big pool rather than the wee pool for some reason, I don't get it since the big pool is a lot colder. So no chance of a proper swim. Early mornings are the only time free, so recently when I decided to start swimming again after surgery, I checked out the prices. They wanted £5.75 a session, but if you want a family pass which I don't you could get it slightly cheaper.

So, checked out the posh gym literally half a mile away, and it's forty quid a month. Immaculate, place is being scrubbed every morning I arrive at 7am and there are three lanes ropes off for fast slow and medium speed swimmers. The ladies changing room has private cubicles if you want, or a big padded bench, all the lockers work and are clean, there are two dressing table areas with proper hair dryers and lighting, lovely shower gel in the shower cubicles, a swimming costume drier, water and disposable cups which are refilled all the time, it's heaven. At that time of day until 10.30am there are no clubs, then Aqua aerobics starts so the lanes are unroped. There are also two really warm (and always working) jacuzzis right beside the main 25m pool. I thought it would be too expensive but am delighted, I swim 5 days a week for £2 a time in a lovely spotless environment with welcoming staff. I'm sure it used to be more expensive but Nuffield health took it over and it's now non profit apparently.

Oh and they have a really good sized sauna next to the pool too, which is great as I hate tiny ones. You always get rammed in beside some hairy old man and I can't stop staring at their moles! For my forty quid a month I could also use the weights and take a certain amount of classes, but due to the nature of my surgery swimming is the only exercise advised by my physio. But it is a real bargain.

Its winter just like mortgage applications dwindle in November and hit the headlines. Wait for house price rise announcements and the success of a government swimming program in the spring.

If it was free, or say £1 per time I would love to go on a regular basis maybe twice a week but no wonder no one wants to go at the moment!

If it's run down, freezing and smelly now, how on earth would this make it nicer? Decrease in price doesn't automatically mean more customers, especially if it's that bad.

If it's a council run pool, maybe you'd prefer to pay more council tax to cover the cost of heating, refurbishment and cleaning staff instead? .

When I was a child I used to swim in a pool built in the 1800s. Now that was awful. No heating, pool or otherwise, changing rooms were cubicles around the pool perimeter, no showers, the skylights in the roof leaked, 100 year old tiles with manky grout. Grim.

Locally we have quite a few pools but they seem to be closing one by one and replaced by ones linked to local schools. The restrictions on when you can swim now are huge and make it really difficult to go, it's such a shame.

I swim at my local university pool & get a good rate as am over 55. But there are only, on the whole, about 2 hours a day when it is open for swimming. As I pay under £200 a year (& use of gym) & am retired I'm not fussed.

The other day I was chatting to a woman who was about to take a childrens' swimming class (private one, not school) & she teaches sports at one of the local private schools & she was saying that many of the year 7 & year 8 children can not swim. Now I am assuming that as these childrens' parents can afford school fees they must be able to afford to go swimming. I know why they don't - the local pools are all vile. Cold, grubby & totally uninviting. And they have dire child:adult ratio rules.

It is such a shame as swimming is such a great thing to be able to do. You can swim long after you've had to abandon other sports & it is great exercise.

Personally I miss the grim old pools with freezing water.. But then I love outdoor pools too!

There is minimal public pool provision where I live so the swimming pool is usually rammed. Annoyingly the swim instructor hogs 2 lanes for a couple of pupils who rarely venture anywhere near the deep end, there is a fast lane, a slow lane and the kids are left to all share what is left. There is no hope of the kids doing more than splash about because they would be constantly bumping into each other. DD is 7 (so needs an adult in the pool with her...so that costs £6.30). The changing rooms are not pleasant so we don't go very often (but make a point of always trying to find hotels with pools for a day or 2 in the holidays).

Fortunately we pay for her to have a 30 minute swim lesson at a local boarding school for £7.50/go.

I love swimming, but hate doing the walk of shame pass the cafe window. Also,after the last time I went, I had a bad chest infection, caused I truly believe with the quality of the water in the pool. Was on steroids and antibiotics, so don't want to gamble going again.
Also, communal showers are useless and uninviting. Water is too cold in the pool and showers. Cubicles are too small,dirty not user friendly - wet shelves, no hooks and broken locks.

There's a leisure pool kind of near us that would be OK. It's almost warm enough and the changing rooms aren't too grim. The showers are dire, and offer no privacy whatsoever of course. But, it shuts every Saturday afternoon from about 2 so it can be hired out for birthday parties. Clearly no one is going to want to take their kids swimming on a Saturday afternoon.

It's £4.20 or £4.40 per person where I live, or about £3.20 for aquatots (under-fives are free). I haven't noticed the pool being quieter. I don't often get to the lunchtime aquatots sessions during the week now, but they are usually relatively quiet. At my local pool, you have to get there early to get in for the family swim sessions at the weekend (apart from 12-1 - that's quiet). We often go to a pool that is slightly further away but is warmer and cheaper.

Our pool is £4.20 for a basic adult swim, less if I joined up one of the membership schemes, but just about to have DD2 so won't be able to swim regularly for a while, didn't think it was worth joining up as a member.

They keep it very cold for adult swimming so I really wouldn't want to take DD there often. But it's walking distance from home whereas the next nearest pool with a proper warm baby pool is a bus ride away. Still I guess we are lucky even to have more than one pool within easy reach.

It's always full of school groups when I go in during the week, but in the lane swimming area it's usually about 3 adult swimmers, we all have 1 lane to ourselves!

I hope it is not a sign of fewer people being able to swim. It is every parent's duty to ensure their child can swim as soon as possible and to maintain that ability. I now live in SA and here the biggest killer of middle class under 5's is drowning. Only yesterday I heard of a 4yo who was found at the bottom of his parents pool. No one knows how long he was there but it took 20 mins to revive him and now they have to wait. Wait to find out what brain damage he has. That pool was locked away behind a wall but he climbed the wall and then ended up in the water. who knows if he had tried to save himself or if he hit his head on the way in but it made my blood freeze to even think about it. My 2 1/2 yo has lessons twice a week and the whole aim is to ensure he can save himself. We have been taking him swimming since he was 5mo when we were still in London and yes we also came across a huge variety in the quality of pools and related showering/changing facilities.

When you think about it there are potential water hazards everywhere and you cannot keep your kids right by you all the time for ever more. Therefore, just like teaching the Green Cross Code or Stranger Danger, parents must ensure their kids can swim by the time they start school, or at least soon after. Far easier to teach them at that age than make them pick up a new skill when they are older and busier and more self conscious of their ability to do something new.

Of the 3 council pools near me, two of them are closed for public swimming when I want to go (after work, when I imagine many other people would want to go).

So I started at the one available pool. Only 2 lanes open for public, the rest were used by a swimming club, so i had to swim to the constant shouting of their coach whilst avoiding other swimmers in my lane.

Add to that the changing rooms are mixed sex, with open showers. I'm no prude, but I really don't fancy showering next to some dirty old man, and when I had to stand for about 10 mins dripping wet in my cossie trying to get the locker open using the stupid bloody electronic wrist key thingy, whilst a group of fully clothed men and women carried out a conversation about 2 feet away from me... it was the final straw.

It cost me £5 a swim. I have now joined my local hotel spa for £50/month, which works out at just over £6 a swim if I go twice a week, and if I manage 3 swims a week, then it's cheaper than the council pool. And for that, I have free towels, hair dryer, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi.

It's a no brainer really.

No doubt the council will end up closing the pools and blaming lack of support for them...

Private family change rooms with showers and hair dryers that actually work

Towels for hire/ free.

Showers with removable heads so shorter people can rinse their hair properly- what's with the 7 foot drenchers- they dont rinse out girls' long hair. (Ok for tall blokes though, eh?)

Warm, draft free areas.

Separate times for men and women (so muslim women can swim for eg) - single sex: showers, change areas, showers, sauna or jacuzzi at particular times.

Clean pool water that doesn't give you thrush.

Casual areas in the pool where no lane swimming is allowed, so swimmers / children can float about without getting mown down.

Pool floors that can be raised so children can stand

Warm areas with seats where mothers can breastfeed.

More lifeguards.

Fewer classes scheduled when adults can swim.

I live in a country area with lots of rivers. Children drown each summer.
Therefore, although the only activity I can afford is swimming, I do somehow find the money.
BUT - for my 10 and 7 yr olds it is £33 a month. 30 mins swimming each.
dd needs a whole length to swim in now and she is crammed in with the littlies as they have public swimming on too at that time.
If I get in with them so they can have a bit after their 30m, because dd is under 8 I have to pay £5.50.

We cant afford it any more.
Ds has ASD and its his only sport.
I have mobility problems and the water really helps.
But, it has to stop.

And ours is cold, dirty, broken lockers etc too

It is scary children drowning.

But if you are priced out of lessons or even casual swim sessions what can you do?

When we could have afforded to go as a family once a week we had 3 children and with the ratios at our pool were not allowed to all go together even with both me and dh in the water .

Now we could take them all according to the ratios but we spend all our money on childcare instead and I work stupid shifts and dh travels so we can't guarantee to be able to take the dc to lessons even if we paid for them and the price they are we can't be signing them up and then missing half the lessons.

I hate that they cannot swim. It fills me with fear. I don't know how to change it though. Ds1 is learning at school, he is 8 and in year 3. Dd is 6 and ds2 is nearly 3. Perhaps I will manage to get them learning before the school lessons, perhaps I won't.

Unless they have changed it back again our DCs are no longer getting swimming lessons at primary school ...if they can't swim (by I think it is 9) we get given vouchers to pay for swimming lessons...
I said earlier at the moment I can't actually get DD2(7) into swimming lessons - the only way I might be able to is to drive 11 miles and queue up at 8am on a Sunday morning at the start of each block (4 times a year) to see if we are lucky enough to get a space ...so what use the vouchers? And I'm not looking forward to the 22 mile round trip for the 30 min lesson every week...
Now if I am struggling with the hassle - what about people without a car? (two buses a day go from here to one of the swimming pool towns the vouchers can be used at, the other one bus every 2 hours or so)
DD1 did get the primary school swimming lessons (but could already swim - had lessons as a baby/toddler etc -also did some intensive lessons in the holidays at the secondary school pool) - now at secondary they get 3 weeks swimming a year...but they are supposedly getting a new school built and as I understand it they will no longer have a pool ...
At the moment I can see DD2 -and several of her peer group - reaching adulthood and not being able to swim...