Swimming pools in North Yorkshire are to benefit from funding of almost £300,000 to help reduce running costs.
The Sport England Swimming Pool Support Fund is supporting investment into energy saving systems at public pools around the country. Four of our facilities are among 300 pools offered funding from the £60 million capital investment programme.
We applied for funding for swimming pools in the county with Tadcaster Swimming Pool, Selby Leisure Centre, Ingleton Outdoor Pool and Settle Swimming Pool all being successful.
We were one of 264 local authorities to have been offered a share of the funding, of which £20 million has been provided by Sport England via the National Lottery and just over £40 million has been provided by the government as part of their commitment to support the long-term sustainability of public leisure.
Tadcaster has been offered £61,000 for pool covers and meter monitoring devices, Selby has been offered £161,275 for photo-voltaic panels; Ingleton has been allocated £44,911 to spend on photo-voltaic panels and pool covers; and Settle will also install photo-voltaic panels with its £21,000 in funding.
Our assistant director for leisure, Jo Ireland, said: “There were over 700 applications so we are delighted to have been offered £288,186 for our facilities. Swimming pools are high energy consumers and with rising costs everything that can be done to reduce those bills is welcome. Swimming pools are vital community assets and important in helping people to keep physically active.”
Figures from Sport England have shown that 4.7 million people swim twice or more a month, making it one of the most popular physical activities in the country.