Rye: Swimming pool which closed due to energy costs to reopen

Rye Sports Centre will welcome back swimmers to its pool in October

A pool which was forced to close almost a year ago due to rising energy costs is to reopen.

The 25m pool at Rye Sports Centre in East Sussex shut in November 2022.

Freedom Leisure, which runs the centre on behalf of Rother District Council, previously said its annual energy bill had increased from £8m to £20m nationwide.

Toby Reed from Freedom Leisure said the closure has been "hard on the community".

Mr Reed said: "It's just been quite hard on the community as a whole because having a swimming resource in a town like Rye is quite vital.

"They had to try and find alternative means to swim which meant going further afield and some people couldn't go further afield or it just didn't work for them," he added.

Elsewhere in south-east England, Sevenoaks and Edenbridge leisure centres ceased trading in March after its operator could not pay its bills.

CEO Ivan Horsfall-Turner said the community were "very clear" they wanted the pool reopened

Staff at Rye Sports Centre kept the pool maintained during the closure. The pool is set to reopen on Monday.

Freedom Leisure CEO Ivan Horsfall-Turner said energy prices remain high, however, "not as high as they were last winter".

For more on the pool reopening in Rye, listen to BBC Sounds

Philip Brownlie from Swim England, the national governing body for swimming, said the pressure on pools has "increased massively" in recent years.

He attributed this to a range of factors including the rising costs of energy, staffing and chemicals, at the same time as an intense scrutiny of council finances.

The body said 1,000 publicly-accessible pools in England have closed since 2010.

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].