A historic community swimming pool that has run for more than 100 years is to be upgraded after Wirral Council signed off new plans.
The Calday Grange Swimming Pool Trust had submitted proposals to improve the facilities at Gourleys Lane in Newton. This included a new single storey training room, reception area, accessible facilities, and expanding the changing rooms and creating "a facility fit for public use."
The pool has been open for more than a century, first opening as an open air swimming pool in 1921 and these new plans have just been given conditional approval by Wirral Council with the pool hoping the improvements will “take it to the next level.”
READ MORE: Inside the brutal gang war that led to a year of violence
Gary Lewis, the pool manager, said: “We were absolutely delighted when the news came through that our planning application had been approved.
“Now that we have been given the green light, the next stage will be to move on to the more detailed planning and costing, which we anticipate being a lengthy process as we want to ensure we get it right.”
There is now a three year window for works to begin and the pool will be setting up a funding committee to look at how to move the project forward.
Mr Lewis added: “The main objective is to ensure the pool can remain open for its current users and for future generations to enjoy. Swimming is such an important life skill that we at Calday Swimming Pool are so passionate about.”
It’s been here for a long time and it needs to be modernised. We want to bring it up to being a facility fit for public use rather than putting up with what we have got.
Mr Lewis previously outlined how the trust wants to take the historic facility "to the next level." He said: "We are always having to hire rooms from the school for classes and we do not have a staff room. We want to replace the current garage with a staff room stroke classroom. because at the moment we can’t even do lifeguarding training properly.”
The pool currently had a GoFundMe page where they are asking people to make a small donation to help support the renovations. This can be found here.
Don't miss Wirral’s biggest and breaking stories by signing up to our newsletter here
