APPENDIX 24
Memorandum submitted by Bedfordshire Amateur
Swimming Association
The Bedfordshire ASA wishes to address two of
the issues identified by the Culture Media and Sport Committee
of the House of Commons in its study of the Sport of Swimming:
— Swimming facilities available in
communities
— Facilities and training support available
for competitive swimmers
SWIMMING FACILITIES
AVAILABLE IN
COMMUNITIES
Bedfordshire and the Bedfordshire ASA
Bedfordshire is a rural shire county with two
major centres of population, one located at the southern extremity
of the county, Luton and Dunstable, and the other in the North,
Bedford. The central swathe of the county is a rural area with
several small market towns. The county has both the A1 and the
M1 as major arterial roads, both are radial to London and provide
little help in travelling across the county. In addition the County
is served by the main rail lines: the East Coast line from Kings
Cross and the Midland line from Euston/St Pancras. There also
are radial routes from London and offer little assistance in travel
within the County.
The County ASA has 16 clubs affiliated to it;
14 are competitive swimming clubs, two specialist clubs providing
opportunities for Diving, Synchronised swimming; Water Polo is
available as subsections of some clubs and some schools are affiliated
to Midland District but not the County. There are at least three
clubs for disabled swimmers, usually providing secluded sessions
for social swimming, but some offer limited training facilities
for disabled swimmers who wish to enter the competitive side of
the sport. The majority of all these clubs are located at public
swimming pools which attempt to serve all the needs of their local
communities from general public swimming, through swimming for
the disabled, swimming lesson provision, to training facilities
for competitive swimmers and opportunities for competition. In
addition we are aware of swimming pools located at several schools
and higher education establishments which are not always available
to the public.
Swimming pool provision in Bedfordshire
Some school pools are open air basic teaching
pools, around 12.5 metre in length and of uniform depth around
1 metre. These are suitable for teaching children up to age 11
to swim, but not for general teenage or adult swimming and not
for competitive use. Other schools, often in the private sector,
have 25 metre pools.
The public pools range from those capable of
supporting 25 metre eight lane competitions to those with only
four or six lanes, sometimes with direct connections to diving
pits and toddler teaching pools. These are used for local competitions
but are designed primarily for general public swimming. Some of
the pools in the County are linked directly to schools and these
have a policy that school needs must be met as the priority, limiting
public use to times when the schools do not need them. In the
urban centres of population, several pools may be accessible within
the immediate environs of the towns, although several of the older
pools in Luton, Dunstable and Bedford are either 33 metre or 331/3
yard and do not meet the modern competition standard of 25 metre
or 50 metre. In rural Mid Bedfordshire, however, there are only
two public pool facilities, one in Biggleswade at the eastern
end of the district, the other at Flitwick, in the western part
of the county.
General Public Swimming
What is required for general public use of a
swimming pool? A wide range of activities are covered by the term
"public swimming":
— opportunities for families to play
and swim together;
— times for independent public lane
swimming;
— special sessions with floats for
active fund;
— keep fit sessions with instructors;
— swim in retirement sessions;
— adult only sessions, sometimes segregated
so that ladies, in particular, can swim alone;
— special sessions for disabled swimmers
who feel unable to use the pool when it is freely available to
the general public. This may appear on pool timetables as, and
indeed be organised by, a specialist swimming club for the disabled,
but it would be largely for recreational and therapeutic swimming,
and therefore is better included here than with the competitive
clubs.
All of these have to fit into a pool's timetable
around the other demands that are made for water time both for
the provision of lessons and the provision of training facilities
for competitive swimmers.
Swimming Lessons
Swimming lessons come in various guises:
— the pool's own swim school which
may work to the ASA National Plan for Teaching Swimming, or not;
— individual lessons, often in public
pool space; and
— adult teaching sessions.
With the exception of school use of public pools
for their own swimming lessons, the major part of the swimming
teaching must take part outside the school day as the children
involved, once they are over four years old, are in the school
system. Adult beginner and improver lessons are most likely to
be timetabled for the later part of evening swimming sessions,
both because of the great demands at peak times but also because
many of the participants work.
Swimming lessons can be provided in the pool's
timetable in one of two ways, largely dependent on the size of
the pool. Eight lane pools have sufficient space to lane up to
half the water to provide lesson space for the Swim School from
around 3pm until, say 6pm. Later sessions would be used for training
(see competitive swimming below). The other half of the water
can be used by the public, and might even be divided to separate
those who wish to swim regular lengths from those who wish to
play with children and so on. Often it is parents and siblings
of children having lessons who swim at this time of day. Smaller
pools may have to close the pool to the public to accommodate
Swim School lessons.
In Bedfordshire the three tier school system
has lower schools with children up to the age of nine, so although
the national Curriculum requires that swimming be taught in Key
Stages 1 and 2 (ages 4-11), often this is interpreted at best
as applying only during the Lower school phase, and children (aged
9-11) are not offered further teaching in school. Some school
children are not offered school swimming at all.
Training Provision for Swimming Clubs
Detailed discussion of this topic will appear
in the second major part of this evidence, but some discussion
of it is needed here as it is an aspect of the use of swimming
pools in the community.
Swimming clubs are generally voluntary bodies
which provide training opportunities for swimmers from the point
at which they graduate from swim schools and they also provide
access to the world of competitive swimming. This starts with
novice galas where children can swim races selected for them by
their coaches as part of Club teams, usually against other Club
teams from the area. As the swimmers develop through their training
they can explore the higher levels of team galas, up to national
leagues, and also the individual performance route of Open Meets.
Here the swimmers are competing primarily for themselves although
they will do so normally with the support of their club coach.
Clubs cater for all ages up to adult Masters swimmers.
To enable swimmers to develop through this competitive
sequence Clubs try to provide sufficient training facilities for
swimmers to train three to five times each week. Training is supervised
by qualified coaches and will include both water based and land
based training. To meet the needs of most of the Club swimmers
sessions have to be before or after school or at weekend.
Are the swimming facilities in communities adequate?
It is axiomatic that recreational facilities
are in peak demand when most of the population has recreational
time. It must therefore be no surprise that peak water usage during
weekdays at the majority of public pools falls in the early evening
period, followed by the later evening and early morning. These
are the times when children are not in school and those who work
normal office hours are not at work. During the day demand can
only come from mothers with pre-school children, the retired,
the unemployed, those on shift patterns and the schools themselves.
This means that all the popular uses—Swim School, adult
swimming for fitness, training and recreational swimming of all
styles—have to fit into these short periods. Provision must
be adequate to meet demand at these times, with additional use
during the working day being almost a bonus but, of course, to
be encouraged. There is constant conflict, reflected in press
comment locally, between the public accountability requirements
of local authority pools serving the public and the needs of competitive
swimming which aims to provide the glory of international success
through training our talented swimmers.
Bedfordshire has above the national average
numbers of young people and is also part of the fastest growing
region in the Nation, the Eastern region. One example of this
growth is that of Biggleswade and the surrounding area. The Biggleswade
Chronicle (page 5, 25th May) states that in Biggleswade alone,
the population will conservatively increase from 15,250 in 1999
to 17,830 in 2004, an increase of approximately 2,500 or 16 per
cent. The pool is already well used especially at those peak times
identified above. Another example is the proposal to build a new
settlement of 4,500 just south of Bedford with no provision for
a swimming pool. This will increase the pressure on the existing
pools in Bedford where the public can swim.
How the needs of the increasing population can
be met is far from clear. There are no under-used facilities in
the area that would be able to accommodate the number of swimmers
of all categories that Bedfordshire ASA hope would wish to participate
in swimming. The obvious answer is to build additional facilities,
but the message we hear from national bodies is that none are
needed. We do not agree.
We have been concerned that in two documents,
addressing sports facilities and swimming development, on which
Biggleswade Swimming Club (BSWC) was invited to comment recently,
historic population figures appear to have been used rather than
population projections. We have wondered if this is why Sport
England appears to consider that no additional facilities are
needed in this area. This is not the view of the local people,
of the swimming clubs nor of the Bedfordshire ASA. At present
one pool in the County has suffered a major structural fault and
is due to be replaced, but plans to achieve this appear to be
moving very slowly. Other pools are also in the queue for refurbishment
if not replacement, but the time scale for work on those is even
longer.
The operational solution to the growing problems
of meeting demand might be the provision of additional facilities
which could meet more of the needs of more of the swimming population
of a 50 metre pool in Mid Bedfordshire, specifically at Biggleswade.
This facility could be used for Swim school; for club training;
for elite squad training; for competition; for training of swimmers
from outside the County; and, by eliminating or reducing the use
of the existing pool by these activities, for increasing the space
for non-competitive swimmers.
FACILITIES AND
TRAINING SUPPORT
AVAILABLE FOR
COMPETITIVE SWIMMERS
Swimming Clubs: the gatway to competitive swimming
Swimmers who enter swimming clubs to experience
the competitive side of swimming are normally given around three
opportunities to train each week. These are sessions of one to
two hour duration to which coaches provide planned training schedules
designed to encourage swimmers to develop stamina, prepare for
race conditions, race and enhance their skills. The proof of their
efforts comes when they swim in team galas for their clubs or
compete in Open Meets as individuals. As they progress up the
ladder of competition so these swimmers need more time in the
water, and ever more testing training schedules.
Most clubs train in public pools. Time has to
be allocated from the total water time available to allow these
swimmers, principally schoolchildren, sufficient opportunity to
fulfil their potential.Taking Biggleswade as a typical example,
club swimmers have three training nights each week, and one morning
session. The members, over 100 in total, are grouped into squads
by ability and performance criteria so that swimmers of like ability
train together. The club has five squads of competitive swimmers
from Juniors through development stages to Senior, while Masters
form the adult section of the club. Many of these swimmers will
achieve qualifying times in several strokes and distances, allowing
them to compete in the County Championships, a few achieve the
qualifying times to compete at Midland District or National Age
groups Championships.
In addition to the provision of adequate water
time, club swimmers also need to have sufficient coaches available
to lead, supervise and encourage their development. Given that
most clubs are run by volunteers and that income derives from
training fees paid by the swimmers, the costs of both water time
and coaches' remuneration dominates the financial management of
the clubs. Many depend on one paid coach and several volunteer
assistants. Finding qualified coaches, or people willing to become
qualified can be a problem for clubs. Coaches try to provide coaching
both in the water and on land, guiding the swimmers through flexibility
and strength programmes of exercises, although there is no recognised
land training qualification for swimming.
There is an issue here of how to balance the
needs of all club swimmers, helping them to achieve their full
potential, against the desire to encourage the highest achievers
to progress even further. The current practice allocates the 100
plus swimmers in club just one third as much water time as the
elite group of 36 swimmers in the area.
Provision for elite swimmers
In Mid Bedfordshire an innovative approach,
unusual in a rural area, has been taken to meeting the needs of
the elite swimmers. The clubs have worked together to form The
Mid Beds Swim Squad (MBSS) which has had its own allocated water
time in the two pools in the district for some years, and has
recently appointed its own chief coach. Changes in training practice
mean that now the elite swimmers in both clubs train together
using both pools for up to 10 sessions each week, giving them
a maximum opportunity close to 20 hours water time. Few of the
swimmers can actually take up this number of sessions, as getting
to school and completing home work has to take priority. The 36
swimmers form an integrated group working together and high levels
of achievement are attained. The majority of these swimmers reach
qualifying standard for the District Championships, and several
also reach National Qualifying times. The highest achievement
was the success this year at National Age Groups of one 12 year
old swimmer winning two gold medals. This swimmer has been included
in the World Class Start programme.
The commitment, both in terms of time and money,
by the families of the elite swimmers is enormous, with major
expenditure of both spent in transporting the swimmers across
the County for their training sessions. However, there is a large
discrepancy between the maximum hours a Club swimmer can train
with their club, and the extended facility offered to the elite
swimmers. This can cause friction as those swimmers not selected
to participate in the elite squads feel they miss the opportunity
to reach the higher levels. If they do not have the opportunity
to train more how can they hope to improve their achievements
and bridge the gap into the elite group? There is also a difficulty
over the elite swimmers becoming too remote from their home clubs,
becoming unavailable for Club Competitions, and not supporting
the development of the younger swimmers.
There are inequalities across the country too
that must be addressed. For example MBSS swimmers recently attended
an Open Meet at a 50 metre pool in London. For some of the swimmers
this was their first encounter with the long course pool; for
others it was a still rare experience. There are insufficient
50 metre pools in the London area—one at Crystal Palace,
one in Ealing. This is true, but there are too many areas across
the country where they are non-existent. We think there is a need
for 50 metre pools to be made more widely available, and they
should be available to people in rural areas as well as urban
ones. The East Sports Board's Target and Action Points includes
an intention to:
Remind national agencies that rural deprivation
is every bit as real as urban deprivation and that people in rural
areas can be excluded as much as those in inner cities.
In terms of swimming provision and population
breakdown we understand that if one current facilities planning
model is used, only London, Birmingham and Manchester would warrant
one 50 metre pool each! As there are more 50 metre pools in Paris
than in the whole of the United Kingdom, and more 50 metre pools
on the Olympic Marathon course in Sydney than in the whole of
the United Kingdom, we think there must be something wrong with
the model. It should be revamped to include elements like encouragement
of sport, enthusiasm and social provision.
SPECIALIST FACILITIES
AND ACTIVITIES
Bedfordshire has limited provision for specialist
water activities such as diving. Surely there is a need to provide
at least enough facilities for this, or is the population of Bedfordshire
yet again to be dependent on travel outside the area for special
facilities. Another specialist activity that does not require
an additional facility but would need water time is synchronised
swimming. The current high usage of the existing water effectively
precludes this sport from starting up in the area. Training time
is also needed for triathletes for whom swimming is only one part
of their competition
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF SWIMMING:
BOTH COMPETITIVE
AND RECREATIONAL
At a time when British swimming is seeking to
change itself into a more competitive body on the world stage
we think that there are two key issues for the future development
of swimming:
— increasing the overall amount of
water available—building new pools;
— ensuring that development plans consider
the whole of the sport—swimming for all, not just the competitive
sport.
Increasing facilities
We have demonstrated that Bedfordshire is part
of an expanding region. Maintaining the facilities at the current
level will permit only a decreasing proportion of the population
to use the swimming pools. Increasing populations need additional
facilities. If as a country we also want our competitive swimmers
to achieve international success we must surely provide appropriate
facilities for them. We do not think these two aims are incompatible.
There is already evidence that attempting to
fit all the current swimming activities into the limited water
available, causes friction between the various groups of people
trying to participate in the sport. When the elite Squad in Mid
Bedfordshire recently took up the whole of their allocated water
space to provide better training opportunities for the elite competitive
swimmers, it caused friction with the general public swimmers
who perceived the squad as taking more of the public water time
and decreasing their enjoyment of swimming; and it caused friction
with the local club, who had been able to use some of the squad
time to provide greater opportunity for the club swimmers and
who are now trying to support their members on less water time.
Only the provision of more water can resolve this problem.
There is a move toward requiring swimmers to
qualify for top level competitions only in long course, 50 metre,
pools. This is sense in that these competitions are held in long
course pools; the Olympics use long course pools; international
competition is in long course pools. However, we do not have enough
50 metre pools available in this country, and those that do exist
tend to be in urban areas and/or are often associated with centres
of learning and academic excellence. We think there is room for
a radical alternative: build a long course pool at a site where
it can be used not only by the local population but also where
the transport facilities will enable it to draw in competitive
users from a much wider area.
Eastern Bedfordshire is accessible to the whole
of the East Anglian Region in which it lies; it is accessible
to London on the radial routes; it is accessible to the Midlands
along the A14 and the North by the A1 and East Coast railway.
The club at Biggleswade has demonstrated its enthusiasm and vision
by acquiring the Automated Officiating Equipment needed to enhance
its competitive facilities. We know the club is now developing
plans to extend its facilities to include a 50 metre pool on the
same site as the existing 8 lane 25 metre pool. Those plans are
still at an early stage of development and this might not be the
optimal location for a 50 metre pool within the county. However,
we recognise that such provision could enhance the opportunities
for all swimmers in Bedfordshire and for the many areas around
the county and would encourage serious consideration of their
proposals.
Development Plans—swimming for all
There is a risk that Development Plans for any
sport will focus solely on the competitive side of the sport.
It is understandable as the governing bodies of these sports are
concerned primarily with competitive development. In sports like
football or athletics this might even be reasonable as a recreational
level these can be organised with virtually no additional facilities.
Swimming is different—even for recreational swimming, a
swimming pool is needed. Development plans for swimming must therefore
take all aspects of provision for swimming into account, so that
the needs for all sections of the swimming community are met.
Active Sport have produced a draft Plan for
the Development of Swimming in Luton and Bedfordshire. This plan
was actually concerned only with attracting more people into organised
swimming, whereas there is a need for planning for all aspects
of swimming. Several exciting possibilities were discussed in
the plan—more festivals, more competition—but nowhere
was there recognition that all the proposals require water time—a
commodity already in short supply.
The blunt fact is that we as a community need
additional water-time and water provision to resolve the conflict
of interests experienced at present at times when all of the public,
the competitive clubs and Swim School are seeking to use the pools.
The increasing need for additional water time
for the competitive side of swimming is now reaching crisis point.
These two comments are extracted from responses
by local clubs to consultation papers on sports facilities and
swimming development. They put the point across well.
28 November 2001
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