Penrith Swimming Club has revealed that its volunteers contribute more than £100,000 worth of unpaid work every year, as a growing dispute with the operator of Penrith Leisure Centre threatens the future of its Learn to Swim programme that could put the clubs future at risk.
The 145-year-old club, which has helped generations of local children take their first steps in the water before progressing into competitive swimming, teaching and coaching, says it is now having to fight to protect a pathway built on decades of volunteer effort.
Its sports development assessment puts the annual value of that unpaid work at more than £100,000. The club also spends around £40,000 a year hiring swimming facilities, while it and the local community raised a further £40,000 towards the construction of the Frenchfield Teaching Pool in the early 1990s.
Despite that long-standing contribution, GLL, which operates Penrith Leisure Centre, is seeking to end the club's existing Learn to Swim provision, prompting concerns about what will happen to the starting point of the club's wider swimming programme.
The row has taken on an increasingly uncomfortable edge following correspondence obtained through Freedom of Information requests, in which GLL said the club's lessons "undermines our program and efforts to grow the swimming lessons membership", adding: "There is a commercial element to this."
The comments have fuelled the club's argument that its volunteer-run programme should not have to disappear simply because it operates alongside lessons offered by the leisure operator.
Westmorland and Furness Council has confirmed there is no national policy requiring swimming lessons to be delivered by a single provider, and that allowing GLL and the club to operate alongside one another remains an option under consideration. However, the club says its future provision has yet to be secured.
For Penrith Swimming Club, the stakes go well beyond a disagreement over swimming lessons. Its programme allows children to join from the age of four and progress through development squads and competitive swimming, with opportunities to become young leaders and gain teaching and coaching qualifications as they grow older.
Those who come through the pathway can eventually return as volunteers, teachers and coaches, helping the next generation of children learn to swim. The club believes losing its Learn to Swim programme would put that established route at risk.
The club has almost 200 active members, including more than 140 children and young people, and says the work needed to keep it going is increasingly being overshadowed by the time now being spent defending its future.
Luke Brown, a spokesperson for Penrith Swimming Club, said: "Our volunteers contribute over £100,000 worth of their time every year because they love swimming and want to give something back to their community. Nobody is doing this for financial reward.
"On top of that, we spend approximately £40,000 every year hiring swimming facilities. Our club and community even helped raise £40,000 towards building the Frenchfield Teaching Pool in the early 1990s.
"Now, the operator of that same facility wants to stop us delivering the swimming lessons that underpin everything our club does."
He said GLL's acknowledgement that commercial considerations formed part of its concerns was difficult for volunteers to understand when their own efforts were focused on maintaining opportunities for local children.
"How can removing a volunteer-led swimming programme that has served generations of Penrith families possibly be the best outcome for the community?
"A four-year-old can join us for their first swimming lesson and years later become a young leader, qualified teacher or coach, giving something back to the next generation.
"That is a lifelong pathway which cannot simply be replaced by offering a different swimming lesson provider."
The fight to save the programme is also placing an additional burden on people who already give up their evenings and weekends to run the club. Volunteers are now attending meetings, preparing evidence and responding to correspondence with GLL, the council and Swim England, on top of their regular commitments.
Mr Brown said: "These are ordinary people with jobs, families and responsibilities who already sacrifice their evenings and weekends to help others.
"They are now having to give up even more of their time to defend something generations of volunteers have spent 145 years building."
He said the club was not arguing that GLL should stop offering swimming lessons, but questioned why the two programmes could not continue alongside each other.
"GLL regularly highlights the social value generated through leisure and physical activity. We agree that swimming creates enormous benefits for communities. But those benefits are not created by leisure operators alone.
"They are also created by the independent clubs, coaches, teachers and volunteers who bring these facilities to life.
"It is difficult to reconcile celebrating the social value of leisure with pursuing a proposal that could undermine a community club delivering substantial social value of its own.
"Our community helped build the facilities. Our volunteers built the pathway. Now we're having to fight to protect it.
"Penrith Swimming Club is not asking GLL to stop teaching swimming lessons. We are simply asking why GLL believes our club should have to stop."
The club is now calling on GLL and Westmorland and Furness Council to find a way for both organisations to continue providing swimming opportunities, rather than putting an established community programme at risk.
Mr Brown added: "Westmorland and Furness Council has acknowledged that coexistence is possible. We believe it is time for that option to be properly explored and for the future of our Learn to Swim programme to be protected."
After 145 years of helping people in Penrith learn to swim, the club says it wants to keep the door open for the next generation, not find itself forced to give up the very programme that has helped sustain its future.
Then select "Add to Home Screen"
