£60m capital Swimming Pool Support Fund opens for applications

The second phase of the Swimming Pool Support Fund is now open for applications and local authorities with pools should act now for the best chance of securing a share of the funding.

The Government has made £40million of new capital funding, which was announced in the Spring Budget, available to support public facilities with swimming pools across England.

This is complemented by £20m of Lottery Funding from Sport England making the total capital investment available as part of this fund, £60m.

The fund is open to local authorities in England that have at least one publicly accessible swimming pool, that offers pay-as-you-swim sessions, and that would benefit from improved energy efficiency as a result of this support.

Tara Dillon, CEO of CIMSPA said,

“We’re delighted to see that this capital funding, which was announced earlier this year, is now being made available for local authorities to apply for.

We are regularly hearing from our many members who manage and work in these facilities how challenging operations are, with high energy costs continuing to have a massive impact on resourcing and viability.

This funding will go some way to helping to safeguard the future of facilities with pools. We know that these facilities play an incredibly important role in allowing people from a wide range of communities to access physical activity and all of its benefits.

The funding will also help our sector in its work to improve the environmental sustainability of activity which, by its nature, requires significant energy use.”

Sport England will be managing the distribution of this funding. You can find out more about the fund and the application process here:

Swimming Pool Support Fund

Applications can only be submitted by English local authorities responsible for leisure provision and each local authority will be responsible for co-ordinating one submission covering the publicly accessible swimming provision in their local area.

More information is available from Sport England here:

Swimming Pool Support Fund opens for applications