The government's Swimming Pool Support Fund will provide a total of £63.3 million to local authorities in England as a support package for public leisure facilities with swimming pools.
More than £20m is available in revenue grants to support facilities with swimming pools with increased cost pressures leaving them most vulnerable to closure or service reduction.
While £40m will be made available for capital investment to improve the energy efficiency of these public facilities in the medium to long term.
Sport England is pleased to confirm that Government has granted conditional approval for the delivery of the revenue allocation and we are now working to finalise the appointment of a grant administrator to launch the fund at the end of June.
The headline timescale is expected to be
- applications submitted by end of July
- application assessment in August
- decisions announced in September
- payments will follow on receipt of a signed funding agreement.
As a reminder, this is a competitive fund that will provide targeted support and applications will be accepted from local authorities who will be asked to coordinate one submission on behalf of all publicly accessible swimming pools in their area.
Therefore, if you represent a community pool offering public access outside of the local authorities own asset base, then please do contact your local authority if you've an interest in applying to the Swimming Pool Support Fund.
We're working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to set the capital fund criteria and application process and expect to have a further update on this at the end of June.
We do understand the urgency and importance of this funding to local authorities.
We're continuing to work closely with the Local Government Association (LGA), ukactive, the District Councils' Network, Community Leisure UK, Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association and others to make sure the application and funding process is as fast and simple as possible.
Should your enquiry be regarding offer of supplies, works and similar, then please note we don't, at this time, hold lists of 'approved' or 'recommended' suppliers or works providers.
Applicants to the fund will need to consider their own options for sourcing supplies, works and similar.