Grange Lido: Campaigners still hopeful pool can be saved

It is hoped the renovated Lido will open to the public next April

Campaigners working to save the pool at a seaside lido say they have not given up hopes of reopening it, despite the council filling the pool with stones.

Renovation work is being carried out at Cumbria's Grange Lido, with plans to reopen it as a public space next year.

Currently, in order to make the area safe, the empty pool has been filled with about 2,000 tonnes of stone.

But the council says it is working with the campaign group Save Grange Lido, which wants the 50m pool restored.

It is 30 years since the site, which opened in the 1930s, was closed.

Work to transform the derelict attraction began earlier this year, in April, and has already seen the seawall strengthened and a play area refitted.

In the coming months, the promenade will be resurfaced.

Meanwhile the pool has been given a "temporary infill".

Ian Wishart, from RH Irving Construction - who are carrying out the building work, explained: "There were various terraces and footpaths and walls which had to come down - and the concrete was crushed and used to fill in part of the old lido structure."

Council leader Jonathan Brook said the renovations would create an "asset for the town"

Leader of Westmorland and Furness Council Jonathan Brook said: "What we're creating is a public space - so once it's renovated it will look brilliant, and then if another organisation, such as Save Grange Lido, wish to come along [they could] proceed to have the pool re-watered."

He added the pool had to be filled temporarily "to make it safe and make the area open to the public".

Chair of Save Grange Lido Community Benefit Society Janet Carter said she "wouldn't be here" if she did not think it was possible to see the pool operational again.

But she said initial estimates of around £3m to renovate the pool, quoted pre-pandemic, had now more than doubled, to about £7m.

Ms Carter has urged the council to give the group a lease for the pool.

"We've been in conversations with National Lottery Heritage Fund and they've visited the site, and we've looked at community ownership funds - but until we get some kind of commitment on paper, we can't apply for the big funds," she said.

An artist's impression of the renovated site, which was approved in March 2021