Press Release

THE STA SUPPORTS THE TELEGRAPH’S SWIMMING POOL CAMPAIGN

6th March 2008

The STA has congratulated The Daily Telegraph Newspaper on its investigation into swimming pool closures and bringing the plight of UK swimming into the public domain this week.  Since the articles were first published on Friday 29th February 2008, we have been inundated with phone calls and emails from members, who all agree that now the issues, which all of us working in the swimming industry have known and have been campaigning about for a number of years, are out in the open, the Government might stand up and listen, and provide extra funding and support to improve access to swimming pools, thus support grassroots swimming.

As the UK’s leading independent voice for swimming teaching, we understand only too well the current issues facing the future of swimming which have all been eloquently featured in the Telegraph’s reports.  The root of the problem, in our opinion, is that the Government is too focused on elite / performance swimming with not enough emphasis being placed on grass roots swimming. But the big question for the Government is, if pools continue to keep being closed at this alarming rate, how is the governing body going to sustain this elite strategy – where will the future champions of the sport come from if we do not invest more in grass roots and school swimming across all cities, towns and rural areas, and provide this much-needed access to pools? 

Another important issue, which has not been raised significantly as part of this debate, is that swimming should not just be thought of as a sport.  It is a key life skill, and it should be the entitlement of all children to be taught to swim in the same way as they are taught to read or write. If a child is not introduced to football or netball at school they miss an experience. If they don’t learn to swim, and are not taught about water safety they can lose their lives.   Every year, many British children and adults tragically drown in pools, rivers and seas.  By reducing public and school access to local pools, we are surely further limiting the opportunity for our children to attend learn to swim programmes, thus endangering their future safety.

Swimming must now be recognised as a priority for the Government.

Roger Millward, STA’s Chief Executive

To see the full reports in The Daily Telegraph, click here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/02/29/nosplit/sogadd229.xml

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