Mixed funding success for Sunderland's swimming pools as grants announced

Sunderland City Council has seen mixed success in its bids to a “competitive” Government grant fund helping with the operating costs of swimming pools.

The local authority’s cabinet of senior councillors, at a meeting this month, were given an update on phase one of the Swimming Pool Support Fund (SPSF).

The city council launched a funding bid for the programme back in 2023, which is administered by Sport England working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

According to a report prepared for councillors, the programme aimed to “recognise and respond to the challenging financial pressures that local authorities, and their leisure operators, were facing because of recent rises in energy and operating costs”.

The national support package was specifically available to support public sector leisure centres with swimming pools and had a national funding allocation of £20 million, the council report adds.

Sunderland City Council, working with its leisure partner Sports and Leisure Management Ltd (SLM), sought funding support for three “priority venues in the city”, however only one was successful.

The successful funding award included £68,796 for the Hetton Community Pool and Wellness Centre.

Elsewhere, funding bids for the Raich Carter Sports Centre and the Sunderland Aquatic Centre, totalling £338,744, were unsuccessful.

At a cabinet meeting on March 14, 2024, Sunderland City Council’s cabinet agreed to award the £68,796 grant funding to Hetton Community Pool and Wellness Centre.

This aims to help with “operating costs relating to energy and chemical use incurred” over the 2023/24 financial year.

Councillor Iain Scott, deputy cabinet member for Dynamic City and Hetton ward representative, welcomed the grant funding.

Cllr Scott told the meeting: “The swimming pool at Hetton is very much a well-used, loved, community asset”.

Councillor Linda Williams, cabinet member for children, learning and skills, added it was “disappointing” that the bids for other leisure centres on Wearside were unsuccessful.

A council cabinet report added the national fund was “competitive” and that 103 local authorities and 196 publicly-owned leisure facilities with swimming pools had been supported through phase one of the SPSF programme.

It is a requirement of the SPSF that it is specifically used to directly support energy and chemical costs at the “approved venue” between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.

Following the cabinet decision, the grant for Hetton will be transferred through a grant funding agreement to SLM, with appropriate terms and conditions incorporating Sport England’s “funding and reporting requirements”.

A council report noted that “ongoing monitoring” of the Swimming Pool Support Fund programme would be undertaken by the council’s Active Sunderland team in consultation with council finance officers.