Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many public swimming pools have remained closed since being closed in 2020 in response to the covid-19 outbreak.

Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and all generations and communities should be able to enjoy the health, wellbeing, social and other benefits of being active

The Government has provided a range of support for swimming pools during the pandemic. The £100 million National Leisure Recovery Fund supported the reopening of local authority swimming pools throughout the country. In addition, Sport England have made 139 Covid support awards to the Swimming & Diving community (totalling £1,178,198). However, information from Swim England shows that since June 2021 there have been 14 public pools that have not reopened after closing during the pandemic.

Beyond Covid, Sport England have awarded £24,190,440 to swimming and diving projects since January 2017, which includes £15,724,500 of funding directly to Swim England.