Explainer: Swimming in it, Sunak’s funds for public pools
If you’re dying to know what will be in the budget tomorrow, Morning Wire has got you sorted with the most important bit of news: the funding pot for swimming pools.
The Chancellor is handing out £63m to leisure centres with pools in a one-year fund. Part of the money is for energy-efficiency measures and decarbonisation, and part of it is simply to keep the public centres afloat. After all, if energy bills are up for families and businesses, they’re up for swimming pools too.
Local authorities will be responsible to apply for the funding – which won’t come automatically – and there will be a bidding process to decide which pools get lucky.
This has absolutely nothing to do, we’ve been reassured, with Rishi Sunak’s own swimming pool saga. The totally relatable and down to earth prime minister has a swimming pool with a unique set of energy needs which can’t be met by your run of the mill community electricity grid. So much so that the local grid in the PM’s constituency had to be upgraded to power the pool.
Sunak personally covered all the costs – estimated to be in the tens of thousands of pounds. As one could expect, although it’s a private matter, it ruffled a few feathers. Especially because the new heated swimming pool was unveiled to the public right after a local public pool in North Yorkshire had to reduce public access due to increasing costs. Many others are reducing the hours they can be open due to sky-rocketing costs.
There are over 2,000 public leisure centres in England, out of which around 800 are swimming pools. These are beloved places for kids, families and communities. It’s great the government is throwing them a lifeline.
It doesn’t make Sunak’s 12-metre swimming pool look like more of a better idea in the eyes of many, though.