Facilities

Five-time Olympian and Strictly Come Dancing contestant, Mark Foster, was joined by professional football and rugby players to launch British Gas Swimfit in the North at the Nuffield Health: Doncaster Fitness and Wellbeing Centre on 1 September 2010.

The ASA’s British Gas Swimfit programme is a free-to-use gym-style initiative for the pool. The website www.swimfit.com allows swimmers to set their own goals and log all the swimming that they do. Swimfit also provides poolside units with laminated session cards to allow pool-users to choose a session suitable for them.

Swimmers in Bristol and the southwest can really set their sights on spring 2012 when completion of the region’s stunning state-of-the-art swimming pool is set for completion.

Building work is now underway and instead of the usual turf cutting ceremony by civic dignitaries, synchronised swimmers from the Central Bristol Senior Squad performed a walk through of their impressive, pre-competition routine to mark the occasion.

Renowned for their creative style and technical direction, the Bristol Central Senior Squad are also on the England Talent Programme. Their attendance at the start of building works underpins the ambitious new-build project, which will not only double the swimming capacity in the city, but which will also promote competitive swimming at the highest level across the region.

Work has finally begun on a new £27million leisure centre at Hengrove Park, Bristol. Ceremonial turf cutting marked the beginning of the end of a long campaign to get a new swimming pool in south Bristol.

But before the spades went in, Bristol Central Swimming Club's synchronised swimmers gave a "dry" demonstration of the technical routine which won them gold in the British championships earlier this year and said they could not wait for the new centre, which will have an Olympic-sized 50-metre pool, to be built.

Hopes pinned on a £100 million project to redevelop Bridgwater's secondary and special schools into state-of-the-art centres have been dashed - and the town could be left without a swimming pool.

The multi-million pound Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Somerset programme would see the town's four secondary and two special schools rebuilt, before a countywide scheme worth around £500 million was rolled out.

The ASA has expressed its disappointment after learning £25m of funding which was due to rejuvenate the nation’s swimming pools has been axed as part of Government cuts – but has acknowledged the move was not unexpected.

The money – due to be allocated by Sport England on behalf of government departments DCMS and DfE – was going to be made available to modernise council and education pools.

44 projects in total have been affected and they are being informed that their applications will now not go forward.

Replacing Cascades swimming pool in Tewkesbury is among the issues put to local residents at the start of a major exhibition on the town's future.

The exhibition, which is being held at the town hall, offers local people and organisations the opportunity to help create a vision, which will shape Tewkesbury for the next 10 to 20 years.

The event forms part of the Tewkesbury Town Centre Masterplan, which sees Tewkesbury Borough Council working in partnership with other groups and organisations to develop a vision for the town centre.

The ASA has expressed its disappointment that Free Swimming will stop shortly but acknowledges tough funding decisions have to be made by Government.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport have on Thursday 17 June 2010 announced Free Swimming for those aged 16 and under and over 60 will be cancelled as part of savings of around £73 million.

David Sparkes, the Chief Executive of the ASA, said: “While we are disappointed to learn that Free Swimming will stop shortly we recognise that in the current economic climate the government needs to prioritise its spending and in that regard we understand the decision.”

Funding for free swims under the free swimming programme will end this summer.

As the RiversMeet Leisure Centre in Gillingham prepares for its July opening, the team behind the refurbishment project are to take a roadshow around villages and towns in north Dorset.

People will have the chance to view plans and photographs of the new centre, which has risen from the rubble of the derelict Gillingham Leisure Centre under the direction of volunteers working with the Gillingham Community and Leisure Trust.

It took over the Hardings Lane facility when North Dorset District Council withdrew funding in 2008.