Leisure Services: West Lancashire

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered leisure services in West Lancashire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. Today, I will focus in particular on the future of swimming in West Lancashire, and I start by acknowledging the research by Swim England and Swimming Nature on swimming and communities.

Everyone has a relationship with swimming. Some people love swimming—they get to the beach and run for the sea, because they love water and being in it. That is just as natural to them as walking on solid ground. But other people’s relationship with water is far more complicated. For people who are not confident swimmers, like me, or for people who cannot swim at all—like me, sometimes—being in water can be scary and even panic-inducing. Swimming is far more than a hobby or something we watch at the Olympics every four years; it is a life skill.

Park Pool in Ormskirk and the Nye Bevan Swimming Pool in Skelmersdale have both served the communities in West Lancashire for over half a century. Over the decades, Ormskirk and Skelmersdale have boasted more than just swimming pools. The Park Pool and Nye Bevan Swimming Pool have taught thousands of children how to swim. They have been a place for friends to meet, as well as a place to meet new people, and they have also given older people places to remain active in retirement.

However, as the children who first learned to swim in West Lancashire’s pools now reach retirement age themselves, our swimming pools are also ageing. Park Pool and Nye Bevan Swimming Pool have both given so much to our community, but are reaching the end of their usable lifespan. They struggle to cope with modern demands and need major refurbishment or replacement. West Lancashire is not alone in this regard. Nearly two thirds of leisure centres in the UK need urgent investment, and there has been a growing fear that the industry could completely collapse in the coming years. Understanding the importance of our pools, in 2019, West Lancashire borough council announced detailed plans for new health and wellbeing hubs in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is outlining the issue that clearly exists and the critical need to improve swimming facilities. However, she has also talked about the importance of leisure, physical activity, social interaction and wellbeing. All those things are critical for her constituents, and my constituents have the same problems that hers clearly have, so when it comes to the improvement of pools, it is important that health and wellbeing are part of that.

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I agree that swimming pools and leisure facilities more broadly are crucial for the mental and physical health and wellbeing of all of our communities.

West Lancashire borough council recognises the importance of our pools, so it has issued plans that include replacing the leisure centres in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk, and relocating facilities while keeping the existing provision open during construction, to prevent any reduction in services for local people. However, since 2019, and the pandemic, the energy crisis and the huge rise in interest rates under the last Government, the project costs have risen by more than 30%, from £36.6 million to £49 million, and it is not just the costs of building new facilities that have increased. The cost of simply keeping the doors open at Nye Bevan Swimming Pool and Park Pool have also increased, not to mention the fact that both facilities continue to age.

All of this means that plans to replace our pools in West Lancashire are now at risk of failure. Although West Lancashire borough council remains committed to delivering new pools for the community, it also has to empty bins, provide housing support, and look after our parks and green spaces. Local government finances have been squeezed to the bone over the past 14 years. Councils were once able to undertake large capital projects, in order to invest in the future of their communities, but the rug has been pulled from under their feet. The council has been left with no choice but to open a public consultation on the future of our pools in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk. That consultation ends tomorrow.

Since 2010, more than 400 swimming pools have closed in Britain, with deprived areas taking more of a hit than affluent ones. The number of pools in local councils with the highest levels of health deprivation fell by 14% over the past 12 years, while those in the least health-deprived areas fell by 6%. Only 45% of children and young people attending school in the country’s most deprived areas can swim 25 metres, compared with 76% in the least deprived areas. Among year 6 children, 25% cannot swim 25 metres unaided, while that figure is almost 50% in low-income families.