Critchley grew up on the Shadsworth estate in Blackburn, when it was newly built in the 1950s. She remembers playing with friends, running around the surrounding fields, playing games of football. “When I was a child, all the kids would make a picnic and just play outside all the time,” she says.
But that was a long time ago. The surrounding green spaces have since been sold off – swallowed up by housing and industrial estates.
The centre first opened in 1974. But after 44 years, the swimming pool closed in February, with the rest of the facility shutting its doors permanently on January 1. The reason? Declining use and unaffordable running costs, according to the local Darwen council.
On its own, of course, the closure of this one leisure centre is not worthy of a national news report. It is, at best, a local story affecting a relatively small number of people. But it is in paying closer attention to thousands of small financial decisions like this that we see the reality of government-led austerity, and the way it is quietly changing Britain.
In our HuffPost UK series, What It’s Like To Lose, we are exploring how these changes at a local level link up to paint a national portrait – from the closures of community libraries, or the centralisation of medical services, to the disappearance of affordable leisure facilities and post offices. As local authorities find themselves picking off the “low-hanging fruit”, we are examining what it means to the people who are now losing out.
Figures from Sport England reveal that a total of 366 swimming pools closed across the UK during 2016 and 2017. During the same two years, a total of 261 swimming pools were also built – a net closure of 105 pools in just two years.
When the leisure centre first came under threat a few years earlier, there was an outcry from residents. They marched to the town hall in protest and won a reprieve. The pool was transferred to a third party operator, but with running costs of more than £100,000 a year, it was unsustainable.
After that, council bosses faced the cost of running the site – at £122,300 per year – despite income of only around £19,000. They decided to close it.
As with so many decisions at a local level, on paper this made the most sense. Residents still have access to leisure facilities: they can travel to the new multi-million pound leisure centre in Blackburn. But as with every closed door and mothballed service around the country, there are small but important changes made to people’s lives. And Shadsworth residents can no longer get to a facility that is within walking distance.
She says she understands the tricky financial predicament the council is in. “I know if people used these things, they would not lose them. But there needs to be a balancing act. There is a need for a leisure centre in Shadsworth. Throughout the summer, there were so many activities for children there, including swimming and arts and crafts.
As well as a pool, Shadsworth had a sports hall, fitness gym, squash court and dance studio. It was home to clubs, including a judo group that produced national champions – brothers Nathan and Josh Burns, and Paul, Louis and Frank Vinneyey, who fought for Great Britain.
Burns made the difficult decision to move the club out in 2016. “The leisure centre kept reducing the staff and threatening to reduce hours,” he said. “It got to the point where there was only one staff member so we couldn’t set up our equipment.
“We moved to the new sports centre in Blackburn, but people didn’t want to go there as they liked it at Shadsworth, where it had been running for years. People were a bit tribal and didn’t want to move to another area.
One of the clearest problems with sports facility closures is the impact on public health. Local residents can become less physically active, often costing the local authority more by putting pressure on health and social services.
Johnston believes centres should become wellbeing hubs for the community, and should include cafes and libraries. And he’s not alone in seeing them as an intrinsic part of a healthy community, fuelling social cohesion. Steve Ward, CEO of ukactive, a not-for-profit body aiming to get more people moving more, says that research suggests physical inactivity causes up to 37,000 premature deaths a year in England and costs up to £20bn.
A study by Swim England looking at the health benefits of swimming found that children who take part in swimming lessons regularly develop physical, cognitive and social skills quicker than those who don’t. The report also found evidence that swimmers live longer, and that regular swimming helps older people stay mentally and physically fit.