Saturday 28 May 2022 11:22 PM Hundreds of swimming pools face closure as energy bills means it's too ... trends now

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Hundreds of swimming pools across Britain are facing closure because they are unable to cope with rising energy bills.

Pool operators are planning to reduce opening hours, turn down the temperature of the water and even ask swimmers to reduce the time they spend in the showers to save money.

Almost nine in ten public pool operators said they would need to reduce their service in the next six months, according to leisure and swimming body UKActive. Two-thirds said they would probably need to cut staff number to cope.

UKActive chief executive Huw Edwards described the results of the survey as ‘stark’ and predicted that without government assistance there would be permanent closures.

‘They [the operators] are really struggling,’ he said. ‘They have been trying to put a plaster on this over the past couple of months. But the reality is they can’t see a way through this unless there is Government intervention.

‘I would like to see a real change in urgency around this. We are talking about hundreds of facilities that support hundreds of thousands of visitors, if not millions, each week.’

It has been calculated the cost of heating Britain’s pools could rise to £1.25 billion this year, from £500 million in 2019.