Connah’s Quay Swimming Pool is a long-standing aquatics facility in the Flintshire area. It was built in the 1960s and has been valued by the local community ever since.
Background
In the face of pressures on Public Body budgets, Flintshire County Council invited the local community to take over the running of the facility as part of a Community Asset Transfer. It was hoped that this would avoid the closure of the pool, or reducing opening hours across the county’s leisure facilities.
In a bid to ensure the long-term financial viability and operation of the pool, a group of four Directors formed the social enterprise, Cambrian Aquatics, and working with Flintshire Council, Swim Wales, Sport Wales and Social Business Wales completed the asset transfer in May 2016.
Business
Cambrian Aquatics is led by a board of four Directors with varied backgrounds but a common interest in Connah’s Quay Swimming Club and Pool. The group, supported by Social Business Wales, completed the transfer in May 2016 and was supported by a £150k capital fund from Flintshire County Council for the maintenance of the pool and facilities. Since then, it has used £65k (from the capital fund) to make improvements to the roof, pool and pool plant machinery. Cambrian Aquatics received further support from Connah’s Quay Town Council, Sport Wales and Swim Wales.
Cambrian Aquatics aims to provide a real pathway for young people to build a career in the leisure industry within their local area. Cambrian Aquatics is a not-for-profit limited by guarantee organisation and aims to be fully sustainable through income generated funds.
Since completing the takeover, Cambrian Aquatics has extended the pool’s offering with new disabled and high performance swimming programmes hosting Connah’s Quay Swimming Club. It is on track to become the Swim Wales flagship ‘learn to swim’ organisation in the area, having succeeded in increasing the numbers of those learning to swim. The group has introduced the Aqua Passport scheme, whereby both child and parent can actively follow progress made via the aqua passport website.
Cambrian Aquatics works closely with 14 primary schools and has used the facilities to bring children to use the pool and areas such as the cafeteria and meeting room as a class room, which allows schools to bring up to two classes at one time.
Cambrian Aquatics is actively supported by Coleg Cambria, the Royal Lifesaving Society and Swim Wales to deliver education, apprenticeships and training opportunities on a national level. Residents can participate in over 60 water-based sports at the pool, from swimming and snorkeling to water polo and kayaking.
Benefits
Cambrian Aquatics has created 27 new jobs and of these, 11 are filled on a full-time basis and 16 are casual staff. The group is working with Coleg Cambria to offer apprenticeship schemes supported by a National Vocational Qualification level 3 in sports and leisure.
All staff are fully trained lifeguards and hold at least a level 2 in swimming coaching (the highest level qualification). This complements the level of staffing compared to local facilities. Staff are invited and encouraged to visit schools to provide swim safe presentations to children of all ages.
As the pool required a level of refurbishment, Cambrian Aquatics, supported by the community and swimming club, was able to clean and maintain the facilities before opening to the public, and this has created a firm community following and those involved hold a sense of ownership and are keen to see these high standards kept.
Students from Coleg Cambria studying a National Vocational Qualification in Building Maintenance were drafted in to paint and decorate the building and were rewarded with real life experience and credit towards their course. This has strengthened the relationship with the college.
Lessons learned
- Cambrian Aquatics found the process to be lengthy and disjointed and there was a lack of co-ordination in regards to the decision making process around TUPE staff transfers. Although time consuming, the council has retained staff and 27 new roles were created and filled by recruiting the council’s casual staff. Thanks to support from Swim Wales, training and qualifications were made available for all new staff
- Cambrian Aquatics found it difficult to navigate through the grant/funding processes as it was unclear which of the many grants available were appropriate for its application. The council application had a ‘one size fits all’ approach and many of the questions/comments were not applicable to this application. However, Cambrian Aquatics held a grants forum and invited other asset transfer enterprises to attend, and this provided insight and advice on the process and funding mechanisms