THE team at Mayday Saxonvale have joined forces with Future Lidos Group (FLG) to create a digital lido toolkit to raise awareness of the unique role lidos play in community wellbeing.
The project, called Pooling Resources, has now been awarded £99,800 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Mayday Saxonvale have proposed a riverside lido in their alternative plan for Saxonvale, which will be one of the community assets owned by, and directed by, the community in perpetuity. These assets will be places where the priorities of the community can play out. Where these assets return a profit, these will be fed back into delivering further social value in Saxonvale and Frome.
The digital lido toolkit will raise awareness of the unique role lidos play in community wellbeing and strengthen the wider network of outdoor pools. The ultimate goal is to benefit communities across the UK, like in Frome via the Mayday Saxonvale plan, who will reap the social and economic rewards of having a lido of their own.
Paul Oster from Mayday Saxonvale said, “This investment underlines the importance of our living lidos as a uniquely joyous route to community health and well-being.
“We are so excited to be a part of the Pooling Resources project. To be able to bring the support and knowledge of other successful lidos to our plan here in Frome will be invaluable for our community.”
In a year that will see three major lido projects come to fruition, the ‘lido revolution’ has now gained fresh momentum. Britain’s oldest surviving outdoor pool, Bath’s Cleveland Pools, will reopen fully following a major refurbishment. This year will also see the opening of Sea Lanes, a new 50m pool on Brighton’s seafront, and the return of outdoor swimming to Hull’s Albert Avenue Baths.
All three are members of the FLG – an informal network of community-led projects and campaigns around the UK and Ireland, dedicated to reviving outdoor pool swimming in their communities.
Eilish McGuinness, chief executive at The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said, “The UK is home to an amazing collection of lidos. Many had fallen into disrepair, but a renewed love of these special places and the blissful joy of swimming outdoors has created a lido renaissance right across the country.
“At the Heritage Fund we are delighted we have supported that renaissance by providing more than £13 million towards restoring and celebrating lidos such Saltdean Lido in Brighton and Cleveland Pools in Bath.
“Lidos are true public and community spaces, providing health, wellbeing, and happiness to those who use them. Our support to the Future Lidos Group for their ‘Pooling Resources’ project will help others build capacity and understanding of lidos so that these can be enjoyed by communities for years to come.”
