Woodhall Spa Jubilee Park lido facing £75,000 gas bill hike

The popular outdoor pool is open for six months of the year, with the pool heated to 29°C (84.2F)

A community-run lido is facing a £75,000 hike in its gas bill amid soaring energy prices, bosses say.

Joe Stanhope, operations director at Jubilee Park, in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, said the cost of heating the pool is set to rise from £30,000 to £105,000 a year.

He said energy prices were set to treble in the coming weeks when the park's current contract ends.

"Like everyone else our fuel costs are set to rocket," he said.

In addition to the cost of heating the pool to about 29°C (84.2F), Mr Stanhope said there is also the additional cost of filtering the water.

"Having a really nice clean pool like this takes a lot of power and a lot of energy," he said.

As a result, the sites electricity bill is also set to rise from £20,000 to £60,000, he added.

The lidos gas-fired boiler system, which is more than 30 years old, is also running on "borrowed time", according to Mr Stanhope.

"We knew this day was coming and have managed to put it off as long as possible, but now one of the boilers is likely to fail completely at any time and the faults are beyond repair, even with our usual ingenuity.

"Fortunately, the trustees have been preparing for this expected event and have managed to allocate enough money to cover the costs," he said.

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It is hoped the spike in energy prices would at least be partly offset by the "increased efficiency" of the new system, Mr Stanhope added.

The work is expected to be carried out in stages to avoid having to close the pool, and to avoid "unacceptable drops in water temperature".