Councillors have approved a £2.7million investment in Stratford Park Leisure Centre and Lido.
The decision at Stroud District Council’s full council meeting on Thursday heralds the start of a five-year repair programme to improve the 1975 centre and 1936 outdoor pool, ensuring they continue to serve the community for years to come.
Initially the funding will pay for brickwork repairs, roofing, decoration, doors, flooring, air conditioning upgrades, lighting, and the external toilet block at the leisure centre. It will also pay for repair of the Lido ‘tank’ and replacement of the Lido pumps and plant which are more than 80 years old.
Year one will see £1.3million-worth of critical repairs and upgrades, with preventative maintenance after this. The Council will also start work on a feasibility study on making large scale changes in the longer term. These changes will improve the overall experience for users, attract more visitors, and increase the centre’s income.
Community Services and Licensing Committee Chair Beki Aldam said at the meeting: “We are excited about the opportunities that a sound and necessary investment in the leisure centre and Lido will give us. We want a leisure centre and lido that residents can be proud of and visitors flock to see. We want to honour the heritage of our area – with a spring-water filled outdoor swimming experience, and one of the only Grade-One listed diving boards left in the country! There is so much potential.”
Stroud District Council will run the Stratford Park, Stroud facility directly from November this year, as it does The Pulse in Dursley. It will be the first time the council has run it directly since 1992 but this investment would have been made regardless of who operates it.
The Lido was known as the outdoor pool until a 2017 public consultation run by SDC, Stroud Town Council and The Friends of Stratford Park Lido tested a selection of names with the public. The most popular was ‘Stratford Park Lido’, which is how the pool is referred to.
Volunteers from The Friends of Stratford Park Lido support current operator Everyone Active in helping to prepare the Lido for the summer.
It opened in 1936 and initially was heated until the pipework was reused for the war effort. Fed by spring water from a borehole, it is unheated and is open from the end of May for approximately 100 days a year. Currently the Lido runs at a loss of £110,000 over that period but the Council funds the facility because of its value to the community.
It is also planned to use excess energy from the newly-installed leisure centre air source heat pump system to increase the Lido temperature by an estimated 3 to 5 degrees centigrade.
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