Bradford district 'woefully short of space for swimming'

The review aims to find £1.3m worth of savings from the Council’s ten leisure centres – which include a number of swimming pools.

Jeanette Sunderland is a Liberal Democrat Councillor for Idle and Thackley, as well as being a keen swimmer.

She has given her views on the importance of swimming facilities in Bradford, and her concerns over how the review could lead to the district losing much-needed pools.

There is no doubt that Bradford is short of indoor space for swimming, in fact it is short of four swimming pools. It was great news that the Council announced the building of four new pools by the end of 2025. This was the key plank of its Aquatics Strategy to get more people swimming by replacing outdated facilities and creating sufficient space for swimming. This hasn’t happened, Bradford is still short of four pools, threatening to close more and remaining woefully short of space for swimming.

I say swimming in its broadest sense because swimming and being in water is not just about having fun or to keeping fit or even participating in a great sport. Having enough water to learn to swim is about being able to save your life, get better from illness, improve your mental health and even increase the number of jobs you can apply for. Shockingly, figures produced by Swim England (the National Governing body for Aquatics) show a quarter of 11 year-olds do not meet the curriculum target of being able to swim 25m or rescue themselves from water – a figure that almost doubles for children from some ethnically diverse communities and for those from areas of greater deprivation.

As a life-ling swimmer who swims a few times a week and every year completes mile swims in open water I was horrified to read the news that the Council was closing two more pools. Two more places where the door is being closed on space to learn lifelong necessary skills to get healthy and possibly save your life. As a local Councillor for Idle and Thackley I looked at the impact on the local community and schools using Eccleshill pool. A survey of pool users unsurprisingly produced almost 500 responses in support of keeping the pool open. But what about those who didn’t?

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland (Image: T&A)

Evidence from local people collected through a survey specifically aimed at young people told me they do not use the pool because “their parents and grandparents don’t swim” or their parents are too “unwell” to swim. Evidence from working with people in community settings largely concluded that people living in the areas immediately around the pool didn’t swim due to ill health, not being able to swim themselves and cost. In short Bradford has already got swimming deserts across the district and is about to further exacerbate the problem.

Despite general agreement across the Council that being active means you stay healthy for longer, sadly doesn’t seem to extend into water based activity. The Council will shortly be publishing its review of swimming pools. It’s not really a review but a cost cutting exercise with the price being paid by those increasing numbers of people living in the swimming deserts. Those families living in the third generation of non-swimmers for whom failure to increase the space for swimming, better programming of water space and investment in facilities means more risk, longer recovery from illness and shorter lives.

Swimming for me is not just fun or a challenge it’s real health issue, it’s about expanding life chances and opportunities. Bradford was once at the forefront of swimming. In 1877 Wapping School was the first school in the country to have its own swimming pool an idea that improved the health of children across the country. Bradford needs at least four more swimming pools not the closure of two more. Four more pools and investment in keeping pools open must be a priority for a council whose central role is one of saving lives, improving health and increasing opportunities for everyone.