The nearest public lido to Croydon is to close next month for a (fingers crossed) nine-month £3million restoration project.
Not quite 100 yards: the Tooting Bec Lido, Britain’s biggest freshwater swimming pool
Recent summer heatwaves have made open-air swimming pools hugely popular, and with the closure of the Purley Way Lido in 1979, keen Croydon swimmers – and sun-bathers – have been forced to travel to Brockwell Park in Lambeth or to Tooting Bec Lido.
There were more than a quarter of a million visits to Tooting Bec Lido this scorching summer.
Now the 116-year-old facility is to get a facelift.
Tooting Bec, at 295-feet long (not quite 100 yards, curiously), is the biggest open-air freshwater pool in the country. It will close on November 20.
Much-missed: Croydon’s lido, on the Purley Way, closed in 1979
Wandsworth Council said that the multi-million-pound investment would fund the replacement of the existing pumphouse, which controls the pool’s water supply, and the construction of a new electrical sub-station to power the pumps and a new UV water purification system.
In Croydon, meanwhile, more than six months after being elected as the borough’s first executive Mayor on a manifesto commitment to re-open the (indoor) pool at Purley, Jason Perry has so far failed to announce how he will fund the works required.
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