Country-wide this summer swimming pools have been packed with children squealing in delight as they enjoyed an active and good value school holiday activity. But the simple joys these facilities give belies the complex struggle faced by many local authorities to keep them open.
The fate of swimming pools has come to symbolise the challenges local authorities face in the balance between cost, carbon and maintaining much needed public resources which support long term public health.
As we come into autumn, the spend on heating and energy by leisure facilities will increase. A problem so dire that ukactive said that around 350 facilities nationally saw service restrictions, temporary and permanent closures between October 2022 and February 2023. The government has made £20 million available for the first phase of the Swimming Pool Support Fund and it is targeted at facilities at risk of closure or reduced service provision as a direct result of the increased expenses to operate them.
Local authorities face two main challenges in keeping their swimming pools open: affordability and being able to manage the facilities within their carbon budgets – most local authorities now have decarbonisation commitments and some have annual carbon budgets they must meet. So, what can local authorities do? There are a number of potential solutions which might not completely solve the problem but can certainly help alleviate it or enable a more holistic view of their benefits.
The best way to reduce cost and carbon is always to eliminate waste, whether that's by better controls, swimming pool covers, improving insulation of the building, more efficient equipment, or better insulation of plant.
As with many situations, a great way to achieve energy efficiency is to use ‘waste heat' from one application and make it useful for another. We are seeing more leisure facilities heated by the excess heat from data centres – it's an obvious opportunity but feasibility can be complicated, for example data racks need to be in a very dry, non-corrosive environment which is hard to achieve in the vicinity of the pool. Another great opportunity is modern (5th Generation) low temperature district heat networks where excess heat from one location can be used in the next location. With the UK government adopting heat networks as a key element to our national solution to decarbonising heat, urban swimming pools can have a big role to play as a heat sink.
Where waste heat is not available for a swimming pool, heat pumps can play a really important role in reducing the energy demand and carbon footprint of a pool. With the relatively low temperatures for a pool, heat pumps can be very efficient with an annual efficiency of over 3. This means that for every unit of electricity used, three units of heat are given to the pool. So, while electricity is more expensive than gas and the price paid by each council and educational facility varies widely, unless an organisation is paying more than three times as much for the electricity as their gas, they will reduce their operating costs by the transition to heat pumps.
Rethinking the justification for the energy use can support a swimming pool's continued operation in terms of sustainability. This isn't about green-washing their energy needs, but looking at pools in the wider context of ESG and social value, rather than just energy. Looking at only capital and operational costs doesn't bring in the full picture, they need to be seen in the context of public health and the socio-economic benefits too – this can also help in terms of justifying the cost.
When this is combined with other decisions, such as extending the operational hours of a pool so it has a higher number of user groups, and co-location, so it's part of both a school and the community for example – then the costs become relatively smaller, so their case can be better made.
Through the public sector decarbonisation scheme Clear Futures – a strategic procurement vehicle for buildings, infrastructure and services for the public sector – has supported several boroughs in securing funding and then implementing project to improve the energy and carbon performance of pools. For example, at Ladybridge High School in Bolton, air source heat pumps and enhanced pipework insultation was installed.
The challenges around cost and carbon aren't unique to leisure facilities in the public sector. The same process of thinking through energy, carbon, and how these are balanced against budget and social need or value can be applied to programmes of upgrades to housing stock or educational facilities. But what is clear is that one route or way of thinking doesn't fit all problems. Communities need a multitude of different solutions which are balanced to provide a holistic approach, which can incorporate energy efficient, low carbon, low cost pools to be enjoyed by young and old for many summers to come.
Helena Rivers is director of Clear Futures
