Applemore and Waterside Swimming Club has been given 3 months’ notice to leave the pool where lessons take place.

Applemore and Waterside Swimming Club is a volunteer led learn swim club which has been running at Applemore Health and Leisure for the past 40 years.

We hire the swimming pools at Applemore for approximately 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon and teach children to swim. We currently have 130 children at our club.

The cost to parents for lessons is for the pool hire and training/equipment. The swimming teachers do not get paid to teach as they are volunteers. This means lessons are affordable in the current climate.

It came as a shock to be given 3 months’ notice to leave by Freedom Leisure. As Freedom Leisure manages (New Forest District Council owns and maintains) all five centres with pools in the New Forest area this leaves us no option but to cease as a club.

This means hundreds of children will no longer have access to affordable community-based swimming lessons and children with disabilities will not have a chance to be included in swimming lessons with their peers.

We teach children with medical needs, autism, ADHD, visual impairments, physical needs, confidence issues, hidden disabilities and other additional needs. Without our club, which allows for these swimmers to flourish, there are no options for affordable swimming lessons with extra assistants and inclusion at its forefront.

Our teachers are a group of like-minded individuals who want to make a difference to our community. We are heartbroken that we are being asked to leave. We have also trained up many swimming teachers that now work across the Freedom Leisure sites.

We have never been in direct competition with Freedom Leisure. We do not advertise our club and have always had a positive working relationship.  

All we want to do is help our community learn this important life skill.

Please support our swimming club.