NEW RESTRICTION APPEARS AS 145-YEAR-OLD CLUB WAITS FOR ANSWERS OVER ITS FUTURE AND PETITION PASSES 2,500 SIGNATURES
Penrith Swimming Club (PSC) has accused GLL of moving the “goalposts again” after being presented with new booking paperwork for Penrith Leisure Centre which states that the teaching of swimming is not permitted.
The latest development has emerged while discussions over the future of the 145-year-old Club’s Learn to Swim programme are still ongoing and before the assessment of whether the Club’s provision can operate alongside GLL’s own programme has been concluded.
The new pool booking form presented to Penrith Swimming Club states:
“Pool hire is for social, recreational and competitive purposes only. The teaching of swimming is not permitted.”
PSC says the wording has appeared after years in which the Club completed booking arrangements for its pool time, before GLL subsequently decided annual booking forms were no longer required.
The Club says GLL continued accepting its bookings and charging it for pool hire, but it has now been presented with new paperwork containing the explicit condition that swimming teaching is not permitted.
The Club says it has not been given an explanation for the change.
Luke Brown, speaking for Penrith Swimming Club, said the latest move had come as the Club was already trying to work through the unresolved dispute with GLL and Westmorland and Furness Council.
“First we were given an ultimatum. GLL then apologised for how the situation had been handled and acknowledged that it reached its original position without properly understanding our arrangements, scale or participants.
“That immediate ultimatum was removed and we entered discussions about coexistence. Now, before that work has even been completed, we are presented with paperwork saying teaching swimming is not permitted.
“The goalposts appear to have been moved again.”
The dispute began publicly in August when GLL told the Club that its junior Learn to Swim sessions would not be authorised to restart following the summer break.
The original proposed date for the change was 1 September, before the timetable was subsequently moved to January 2027 while discussions continued.
Westmorland and Furness Council has repeatedly said that no final decision has been made.
In a statement issued on 19 August, the Council said the review was part of a wider standardisation process across GLL’s leisure portfolio and concerned only the Club’s beginner Learn to Swim programme.
The Council also said the Club’s competitive swimming, talent pathways and club-ready sessions were not included in the review.
The Council said it was working with GLL, Penrith Swimming Club and Swim England to find a way forward.
It also set out two possible options: a single beginner Learn to Swim programme operated by GLL, or separate beginner programmes operated by GLL and Penrith Swimming Club.
But the new booking condition has now brought the dispute back into the spotlight.
Penrith Swimming Club says the wording appears to directly prevent it from carrying out the very activity which remains under discussion.
The Club has consistently argued that its Learn to Swim provision is different from GLL’s own programme because it provides a pathway into competitive swimming and ultimately into the wider Club.
It has also said it is not seeking to stop GLL from running its own swimming lessons.
Instead, PSC wants both programmes to be given a genuine opportunity to operate alongside each other.
That position is significant because the Council itself has previously said that one of the options being considered is for GLL and Penrith Swimming Club to operate separate beginner Learn to Swim programmes.
The Council has described Penrith Swimming Club as a “valued partner” in developing swimming opportunities across Penrith and Eden.
Its August statement also recognised the Club’s longstanding contribution to swimming in the area, including its historic contribution to the leisure centre.
The Council said: “Penrith Swimming Club have played an integral role in developing our young swimmers over many years and we appreciate the high standard of coaching they hold and will continue to offer.”
The Club, however, says that recognition now needs to mean something in practice.
According to PSC representatives who attended a recent meeting, GLL’s Partnership Manager for Westmorland and Furness said the Club’s history was “not relevant” to the discussion.
Brown said the history of the Club was directly relevant to why its members are fighting to retain its place at the leisure centre.
“Our history is relevant because it explains why this Club and these facilities mean so much to Penrith.
“Generations of local people did not simply turn up and use a leisure centre. They volunteered, fundraised and invested in swimming in this town.
“The community raised around £40,000 towards the teaching pool. To tell that same community, decades later, that its swimming club’s history is ‘not relevant’ while seeking to prevent that Club teaching children to swim in the facility is incredibly difficult to accept.”
The Club has previously said that its members helped drive the campaign for the Frenchfield Teaching Pool in the 1990s and raised tens of thousands of pounds towards its construction. It also says it now spends around £40,000 a year on pool hire at Penrith Leisure Centre.
PSC was founded in 1881 and has been based at Penrith Leisure Centre since the current pool opened in 1971.
The latest booking condition has also reignited questions over who ultimately has responsibility for deciding what happens to the Club’s Learn to Swim programme.
Penrith Leisure Centre is owned by Westmorland and Furness Council, while GLL operates the centre on the Council’s behalf.
At the Council’s August review stage, the authority said no decision had been made and that all four parties — the Council, GLL, Penrith Swimming Club and Swim England — were involved in the discussions.
But when Penrith Independent councillor Mike Eyles later asked the Council at Full Council to confirm that PSC would continue to be able to provide its Learn to Swim programme, no such guarantee was given.
Cllr Vicky Hughes, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Active Wellbeing, said:
“The council's role is not to determine the operational arrangement between the parties, but to support a process that sees a balanced and equitable outcome, with responsibility to the wider community and to all user groups who access our council-supported centres.”
Brown said that leaves the Club wanting a straightforward answer.
“So who is actually making the decision?
“The Council owns Penrith Leisure Centre. It describes us as a longstanding partner. In August it described itself as involved in an unresolved review.
“It now says it does not determine the operational arrangement, while its contractor introduces paperwork stating that teaching swimming is not permitted.
“Penrith deserves a straight answer.”
The latest development also follows Freedom of Information disclosures which revealed correspondence between GLL and the Council about the Club’s Learn to Swim provision.
In one piece of correspondence, GLL described PSC’s provision as something which:
“undermines our program and efforts to grow the swimming lessons membership”.
The same correspondence stated:
“There is a commercial element to this.”
The disclosures also showed that GLL had been considering changes to the way the Club’s Learn to Swim provision operated.
GLL subsequently acknowledged that its initial position had been reached without properly understanding the Club’s arrangements, scale or participants, and the operator apologised for the way the matter had initially been handled, according to the Club and documents previously reported by Penrith.Town.
The Council subsequently made clear that there was “no suggestion of impropriety” by Penrith Swimming Club or its volunteers.
It also said the absence of a formal agreement for the Club’s Learn to Swim provision had developed through historic arrangements and was neither intentional nor the Club’s fault.
As the dispute continues, more than 2,500 people have now signed the petition supporting Penrith Swimming Club’s campaign.
The figure marks a significant increase from the 1,000 signatures recorded during the first weeks of the campaign and the 1,300 signatures reported later in August.
The Club says the campaign is not about preventing GLL from operating its own swimming lessons.
Its position remains that there should be an opportunity for both programmes to coexist, with the financial and operational implications properly assessed before any decision is taken.
Brown said:
“This is bigger than swimming lessons. It is about whether generations of volunteering, fundraising and community investment actually count for something.
“A 145-year legacy should not be allowed to disappear through a series of operational decisions while everyone else says the final decision belongs to somebody else.
“If Westmorland and Furness Council genuinely regards Penrith Swimming Club as a longstanding partner, now is the time to demonstrate what that partnership means.”
The Council has said that if the outcome of the review is that Penrith Swimming Club’s Learn to Swim programme continues, a formal agreement will be put in place. It has also said there is currently no set date for a final decision.
For now, the new booking condition has added another twist to a dispute which began with an instruction that the Club’s swimming teaching would not continue, moved into negotiations over whether the two programmes could coexist, and has now produced fresh paperwork explicitly stating that swimming teaching is not permitted under the booking.
GLL was asked by Penrith.Town to comment on the new booking condition, the Club’s concerns and the latest development in the dispute, but has so far declined to comment.
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