The city's public pools are making a splash with Londoners who want to beat the heat.
With one heat wave following another this summer, London’s public pools have experienced an increase in swimmer attendance.
“Substantially our numbers have gone up in terms of attendance and everything along those lines,” says Joaquin Barrientos, London's Supervisor of Aquatics. “Sometimes some of our pools have hit capacity. We’ve had a lot more camps requesting pool times, and things along those lines, and we are certainly seeing the number of patrons attend our splash-pads.”
While the trend of increased attendance is expected when heat waves strike, Barrientos points out that the generally hotter conditions are increasing demand every day.
“As the summer has poured on, people are just attending more and more, just because they’ve realized that, rather than this being a heat wave, this is the kind of summer we’ve been having,” says Barrientos.
But even through turnout has increased, pools have maintained their regular schedules, which balance organized activities with recreational swimming. Barrientos says, despite the lack of schedule flexibility, the majority of swim times are devoted to ‘rec’ swimming.
“Essentially there’s not much room that we can wiggle around in there, just because we’ve got programming going on between there,” he says.
Of London’s 15 pools, only 3 are indoor, with the remaining 12 outdoor running exclusively during the summer. Barrientos estimates that both types of pools have seen substantial increases in attendance, suggesting Londoners care more about pool proximity over whether the pool is indoor or outdoor.
“We spread out pools pretty evenly throughout the city, and so rather than people seeking out that requirement necessarily, they’re more so seeking out the pool that’s closest to their community,” says Barrientos.
It's likely the city's pools will continue to be busy this week, as daytime high temperatures are expected to be above 30 C.
**This story was written by Samuel Gallant. Samuel is a student in the Fanshawe College broadcast journalism program. He is performing a summer internship with Blackburn News.**
