The Lido And The Summers Towns Built Outdoors

Open-air swimming pools were built in large numbers as public works, then closed in large numbers within a few decades. Both movements had the same underlying cause.

They were public health infrastructure

Municipal pools were funded on arguments about fitness, cleanliness and safety. Teaching a population to swim reduced drownings, and outdoor bathing was considered good for people generally.

Many were built during periods of deliberate public works spending, which explains their scale and their architecture. They are grand because they were meant to be seen as achievements.

Access was the point. Entry was cheap or free for children, and pools were sited where people lived rather than where land was easiest to acquire.

The design assumed the sun would do the work

Unheated pools rely on air temperature and sunlight, which makes them viable for a few months and unusable for the rest. The season was short by design rather than by neglect.

Terraces, sun decks and cafes were therefore as important as the water. People spent the afternoon at a lido without necessarily swimming much of it.

Capacity was set for hot days, so the buildings are large relative to average use. A pool sized for a heatwave is mostly empty, which matters when costs are fixed.

Why the economics collapsed

A large volume of treated water costs money to filter, chemically balance and staff whether anybody swims or not. Revenue arrives in a handful of weeks; costs arrive all year.

Indoor pools then offered a longer season and more reliable income, so councils facing constrained budgets closed the outdoor site and kept the covered one.

Foreign holidays absorbed some of the demand as well. A guaranteed warm sea competes directly with an unheated pool in an uncertain climate.

Restoration keeps running into the same numbers

Campaigns to reopen lidos have succeeded in many places, usually through trusts, heritage funding and volunteer labour rather than through ordinary council budgets.

The operating problem does not go away. Reopened pools frequently add heating, year-round opening, cafes and events specifically to spread income across the months when the water is cold.

Charging more is the other lever, which changes who uses the pool. A restored lido can end up serving a narrower group than the one it was originally built for.

What the buildings still demonstrate

The surviving pools show what municipal ambition looked like when it was expressed in concrete: fountains, diving platforms, terraces and clock towers around a rectangle of cold water.

They also show a different attitude to comfort. Swimming outdoors in unheated water was normal recreation rather than an endurance activity undertaken deliberately.

Where a lido has gone, the site is usually identifiable from the air by its rectangle, which outlasts the building for a surprisingly long time.