Swimmers at Elephant & Castle’s new Castle Centre pool were disappointed to find part of the pool out of bounds due to a shortage of lifeguards. Families in Tonbridge were told the town’s outdoor pool would have to close in the evenings, for the same reason.
Up and down the country, pool operators are struggling to provide adequate lifeguard cover and are forced into closing lanes and reducing opening hours.
It’s hard to determine the exact number of lifeguards needed, but in some areas the problem has become so bad that job adverts for lifeguards fail to attract a single applicant.
The lack of lifeguards is coupled with a desperate need for more swimming teachers. The 2015 Industry Swimming Teachers Recruitment Survey by the Swimming Teachers’ Association (STA) found that 72 per cent of swim schools in the UK have a waiting list for lesson spaces. Worryingly, more than 81 per cent of the 229 swim schools surveyed said they could not find appropriately qualified swimming teaching staff to meet the demand.
Seventy-one per cent said the difficulty in finding appropriate staff was affecting their business growth plans.
The shortages have been noted and measures are being put in place to tackle the problem, including by Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington. A passionate campaigner for the right of every child to learn to swim, Adlington set up her own swim school, where over 6,000 children learn to swim each week.
“It’s well known in the aquatics industry and community that there’s a shortage of quality swimming teachers in this country,” Adlington says. “I see Becky Adlington Training as something more than simply getting people through their qualifications. A swimming teacher isn’t there just to pass on technical expertise, they should be a role model for pupils, demonstrating a passion and commitment to teaching people to swim.”
Action is also being taken by sector organisations. The Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) has launched a national campaign to encourage young people to train to become pool lifeguards, while the STA has launched the industry’s first aquatic tutor grant scheme to help combat the shortage of swim teachers across the country.
But is enough being done? We asked the experts.