Why we must do all we can to keep public swimming pools open - Kim Leadbeater

If we don’t do everything possible to keep public pools and leisure centres open, we run the risk of consigning future generations to less healthy, less happy lives and at the same time putting incalculable extra pressure on the NHS.

It’s the clearest possible example of ‘short-termism’, taking what looks like an easy decision now to save money, only to see it costing us much more dearly further down the road.

It is a national disgrace that in 2023 life expectancy and the period of people’s active, healthy working life is actually falling in parts of the UK. It will come as no surprise that those are the areas of greatest deprivation where people rely most on public services. If levelling up is to mean anything at all, we can’t have decisions taken in London that deprive people in Yorkshire of publicly funded facilities open to all. But that’s exactly what’s happening.

In my constituency, I know the Council and Kirklees Active Leisure would much rather keep facilities like Batley Baths open. The reason this much loved pool is now closed is a direct result of the squeeze on funding for local government over the past 13 years, suddenly made worse by the rise in inflation. The government has offered help to energy-intensive industries and businesses but leisure centres and swimming pools don’t qualify. This cannot be right.

The cost of people of working age taking time off through poor health is estimated to be in the region of £300bn a year. Obesity alone costs the economy £58bn a year. A healthier population is quite simply a happier, more productive and economically active population. It’s a double whammy. Reducing opportunities for people to stay fit and healthy adds to the costs of treating ill-health and at the same time reduces the number of people in active employment, paying the taxes that are needed to fund the NHS in the first place.

You cannot put a figure on the value of pools and leisure centres. As I said in the House of Commons recently, “they are hubs in the community so this is not just about physical wellbeing but about mental wellbeing, social cohesion and lots of other things besides”.

Less than half of all children currently meet the daily guidelines for sport and physical activity, but 54 per cent of children would like to do more. These are the government’s own guidelines. We need to change our whole approach to the nation’s health and wellbeing, but in the absence of a proper strategic framework, not taking short-sighted decisions would be a very good place to start.

Kim Leadbeater is the Labour MP for Batley and Spen.