About
Future Lidos connects, represents and champions lidos across the UK and Ireland. We are a collaborative network, dedicated to bringing the joy of outdoor swimming to more communities by restoring heritage pools, creating new lidos, and developing existing pools for the future.
Who and where are we?
Future Lidos represents 136 operating lidos and 50 development projects, located throughout the UK and Ireland.
These lidos and projects range from our oldest outdoor pool in Bath to our newest in Canary Wharf; from the big city pools to modest village lidos; and from the north east of Scotland to the south west of Ireland.
Our Lido Map links to operating pools (the blue pins) and development projects (orange), so if you’re looking for a pool to swim in, or a campaign to support, this is the place to start.
And if you operate a public outdoor pool, or are working to create or revive a lido, please do get in touch.
What do we do, and why do we do it?
We connect, represent and champion lidos, because we believe that everyone has a right to the joy that outdoor pool swimming brings.
Our vision is for all communities in the UK and Ireland to have access to a thriving outdoor pool. So we support all organisations working to create, revive, sustain and develop public outdoor pools, in order to enhance the physical, mental, social and economic health of our communities.
Our current priorities include: -
Nurturing knowledge sharing, capacity building and ideas exchange across the network
Cultivating best practice and innovation in key areas such as equity, environmental sustainability and business development
Promoting the value of lidos to public health, water safety, economic progress, climate adaptation and social solidarity
Working with politicians in national and local government, to raise awareness and foster support
Building alliances and partnerships with like-minded organisations around shared goals for public benefit
Supporting lidos at risk
And we do all this collaboratively – both across the network and with our allies.
© Sea Lanes
The Lido Toolkit
Thanks to support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we were able to run a major collaborative project, Pooling Resources, and create the Lido Toolkit. This is a compendium of lido wisdom, sourced from across the sector, and complemented by specialist expertise and lived experience. It’s free to access, and available here.
The journey to and from here
Inspired by the collaborative energy of three National Lido Conferences convened by the authors of The Lido Guide, six lido project leaders came together on a Zoom call in early 2021.
In just a few short years, Future Lidos has grown from there into the authoritative resource for all aspects of the 21st-century lido renaissance.
The Pooling Resources project, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, was an important springboard, and unpaid activism has underpinned our work since then.
We are now developing plans to move Future Lidos onto a financially sustainable footing, so that we can sustain and grow our work and our impact.
To find out more about the team behind Future Lidos and Pooling Resources, see our credits page.
And if you would be interested in joining the network, or supporting our work, please do get in touch.