Otley Lido 100th Anniversary: Will it ever return?

We meet the Friends of Otley Lido who are hoping to make a splash by breathing new life into a gem of the town as it marks its centenary year.

Transcript

00:00The public reaction has been great and the support from the community has been great.

00:04It's just, it's challenging. The environment is challenging for the leisure sector.

00:08That's one of the key things at the moment.

00:10The outdoor baths in Otley opened in 1924, enjoyed by locals and visitors alike,

00:15before closing in 1993.

00:18In recent years, the Friends of Otley Lido have engaged with councils, businesses and locals

00:23to secure support for their vision to make a splash here once again.

00:27When we hit the funding target that we achieved, when we smashed the target that we had of £65,000,

00:34we then looked at the planning process in terms of what we need to do to take it up to planning

00:39and went out to tender and we engaged a leisure consultant

00:44with the advice of a retired leisure consultant who's been assisting us

00:48and that firm has also engaged other specialists to help take us up to the planning phase.

00:53We're looking to put master plans for the site and outline business plans together.

00:57The results should hopefully be available in a few weeks' time

01:00and then we'll have a much better idea of where we may be able to go.

01:03The team are continuing to collect memories and footage,

01:06which will form part of their Heritage Open Days event

01:09and following a summer of inspirational sport,

01:11it's hoped that the Lido could eventually be a training ground for champion swimmers of the future.

01:16This is an important year for us, particularly to get more community engagement,

01:20which is what we're doing on the weekend, get people down here

01:23and on that 100th year anniversary for them to be able to come back

01:26and get the memories and the history of what the site was like when it was up and running.

01:31We're currently in a situation where lots of pools are closing and are earmarked to close,

01:35not only because the stress is that councils are under financially,

01:39but they've all reached a certain age that they need repairing and they need investment.

01:44So as they close, we need new Lido's, we need new pools to open to replace those.

01:49Every single one of our Olympic swimmers started somewhere.

01:52They had a local pool that they started in,

01:54so our hope is that they'll be starting in Otlo Lido and then we'll see them in future Olympics to come.