Email received from Sport England on Friday 3rd November:
Dear Member of Parliament,
As announced in the 2023 Spring Budget, the Government is investing over £60 million of new funding to support public facilities with swimming pools across England.
Sport England is pleased to be delivering the Swimming Pool Support Fund on behalf of government. The measures are intended to ensure that children and adults up and down the country continue to have access to a public swimming pool, helping people get active and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Tomorrow we will announce the recipients of the first Phase of funding - £20.3 million of revenue support. We have worked at pace to make sure the funding was available as soon as possible, and targeted to where it could prevent the largest amount of closures. The fund was significantly oversubscribed and, as a result, we were unfortunately not able to fund all facilities who applied.
At the request of DCMS we are writing to inform you that the following pool in your constituency will be receiving financial support:
HADLEIGH POOL & LEISURE IP7 5BH - £115,620.00
The criteria used to determine who received funding considered a range of factors, including financial need, the risk of closure, the proximity to other swimming pools providing public swimming access and the level of demand for the facility. You can check the full list of facilities receiving funding on the Sport England website – it will be published as a news story on Saturday here.
Applications for Phase II of funding, £40million of capital support, are currently being considered. If your Local Authority applied, they will hear back on the success of their applications early next year. We will also write to you ahead of the public announcement of awards.
I take this opportunity to thank you for supporting your councils’ applications for funding, as we move ahead with delivering this vital lifeline to keep our nation’s public swimming pools afloat.
Kind regards
Kevin Mills
Director - Place Development
Sport England
