Lochalsh swimming pool to reopen next month after a year of tireless fundraising
LOCHALSH’S sorely missed swimming pool is set to reopen next month after more than a year of determined fundraising in the community.
Following an electrical fire in January 2024, Lochalsh Leisure Centre was forced to close — despite being acclaimed by the community as a life-saving facility, in a coastal village where learning to swim is a necessity due to the lives of many locals “revolving around the sea”.
After months of campaigning and fundraising to reach a target of £40,000, the leisure centre’s gym finally reopened in January of this year. A few months on, the pool is now set to follow.
“It's taken a bit longer than we would have liked, but we are delighted to finally confirm the pool will reopen for swimming from May 1,” said Lochalsh Leisure Centre on their Facebook page. “The sauna and steam room will reopen then too. Thanks for all the support and patience you have shown us, it has been, and is, amazing! But we do have one request:
“Please, please, please, if you haven’t already, renew your membership with us. Membership levels are unfortunately below the levels we need to maintain and run a leisure centre and swimming pool with a full-service offering. Renewing or taking out a membership with us is the single most important thing you can do to support us in the delivery of our core mission – to teach the children of our community to swim.”
Lochalsh Leisure Centre raised a total of £36,000 via donations to their JustGiving page, with numerous highly generous anonymous donations. One anonymous donor gave £10,500 to the cause, stating it was for “the community I used to live in and still love”.
Many different fundraising events were also held locally, with 20 people swimming from Kyleakin to Kyle for the cause - raising nearly £18,000. Youngsters from Kyleakin Primary School and Nursery even got involved by holding three non-uniform days.
The Lochalsh facility went on to state that their swimming timetable will be published on April 25. They said: “You will need to be very patient with us as the initial timetable will be limited. However, we will be able to offer a fuller timetable from June, once all our staff are lifeguard trained; this training takes place through the month of May.
“During June, we will also be reaching out to parents and guardians about the resumption of children's swimming lessons. Please don't flood our emails and messages with questions on this yet, as we're still working out the details of delivering these lessons and addressing the backlog on our waiting lists.
“We will also be approaching all schools we deliver swimming courses to, also during June, about the resumption of formal class lessons for children from the start of the new term in August 2025.”
