What’s happening at the Lido now?
At the time of writing (April 2024), R H Irving, the contractors working on the Lido for Westmorland and Furness Council (W & F) are almost a year into the first phase of the restoration. The work is expected to be completed in the summer.
We know that many of our followers and supporters are concerned that the pool basin has been filled in with aggregate. Rest assured that we’ve known that this would be the case since we started working in partnership with the Council, and the work has been done in this way to ensure that the pool basin does not break its back without the weight of water in it. The infill has always been known to be both temporary and removeable. There’s more information about this below.
We’re continuing to work with W & F and we all fully support the long-term plan to restore the Lido with a pool at its heart, but in the current climate, with its finances stretched, the Council was unable to afford to fund the full restoration. As it is, the Council has spent £6.2m on the combined work to the Lido and the Promenade, and it is Save Grange Lido’s task to raise the additional funds needed to fully restore the Lido with a pool at its heart. Current advice from our Quantity Surveyors is that our part of the work is likely to cost around £5m at today’s prices.
What’s involved in the current work?
The work currently underway has stabilised the structures of the Lido. Long neglected with minimal maintenance since closure in 1993, the site became hazardous and unsafe. The Phase 1 work will remedy this and will make the site accessible to the public once more. The Central Pavilion is being restored, but we will need to fit it out to suit our purposes as it’s being left as a “white box”. The terraces and sea walls have been repaired and made safe, and improvements made to the diving podium. The North and South Pavilions will be made structurally safe but left moth-balled pending SGL taking over the site.
We had many lengthy and detailed discussions with the Council about the pool basin. We looked at fencing surrounding it or temporary decking over it so that the water could be retained, but these solutions were found to be unworkable (health and safety considerations for the fencing, and prohibitive expense for the decking).
The pool basin could not simply be drained and left empty, as without the weight of water the pool basin would probably break its back and require expensive repair.
In the end, the decision was made back in 2019 that the pool basin would be filled with a temporary, removeable and reusable granular material. At the end of Phase one, there will be some landscaping on top of this to make the site more attractive.
It’s important to note that the basin requires a degree of infill come what may, to enable us to achieve the pool depth profiles we need. Retaining the existing depths was ruled out at an early stage on the grounds of cost (both capital and on-going outlay) and safety grounds.
The infill is temporary. We know that removing it adds to the cost of the second phase of the work, but the two-phase approach is one we’ve been working on with the Council since 2019 and is the best and only way for us to secure the full restoration.
What will happen at the end of Phase 1?
Although in an ideal world we’d have had the funds in place for the full restoration by now, unfortunately that hasn’t happened. Our progress wasn’t helped by the pandemic and the economic problems from which we’ve all suffered. Major funders generally require a two-stage approach – paying firstly for development work (planning etc) and then the delivery phase (construction). We’re currently preparing applications for funding to kit out the buildings for the temporary use pending full restoration, so that when the site is opened to the public, we will be present on site to deliver our message that the overall objective is for a fully restored pool.
We expect be able to take over the site from the Council in the coming months. We’re currently negotiating the terms of that transition with W & F officers. The plan is that we will manage the Lido as an attractive Community and Heritage Centre whilst we get on with the development and delivery work. We’ll use the Central Pavilion as a visitor/heritage attraction promoting our work. We’ll host arts and cultural events at the Lido (we’re in discussion with several groups at the moment). We’re also planning to secure funding to fit out the North and South Pavilions as a fitness/well-being hub and community space.
What about fundraising?
Many of you have wondered why we haven’t yet sought major donations or issued a community share offer. We’ve taken the view that it is difficult at the moment to seek large donations from benefactors, as we have little tangible to offer at present. We decided that the time to do this is when we have planning approval and when we have large grant funding in place – large grants require a substantial degree of match funding, and large donations and the community share offer are the means by which we will achieve the match funding needed.
©Save Grange Lido 2024