Fusion Leisure continues to limit access to Park Road Lido

Fusion Leisure continues to limit access to Park Road Lido

Thursday 25 April 2024

On Saturday 16 March, Fusion Leisure — who will continue to run Park Road Lido until Haringey Council takes over in October — made major changes to the way in which swimmers access the pool.

Although overall opening and closing times went unchanged (07:00–18:00 weekdays and 08:00–16:30 at weekends), under the new timetable the lido is closed for more than a quarter of this time. This major reduction is a result of the emptying and closure of the pool for 20 minutes at the end of each of the new-format, 55-minute swimming sessions that start every hour and a quarter.

On top of this significant reduction in opening hours, the repeated closures force users to swim to Fusion’s timetable, instead of the lido being available for swimmers at their convenience.

Worse still, Fusion Leisure has, for the majority of sessions, closed two of the five lanes and limited capacity to just 25 swimmers per session.

We — the Park Road Lido User Group (PRLUG), whose goal is to keep the lido open for as many swimmers as possible, all year round, while lobbying for other improvements to the user experience — have consistently opposed these changes. Our members have also been vocal in their opposition, with many finding themselves unable to attend at a time convenient to them or unable to attend at all, as slots are often fully sold out days in advance.

We’ve continued to highlight these (and other) issues to Fusion in numerous meetings, specifically calling for an end to closures between sessions and for an increase in session capacity.

Fusion say a shortage of lifeguards has necessitated the changes (although users of the lido frequently point out that these changes make the problem worse not better) but have yet to provide a robust explanation or clarity on their future plans.

Changes from 29 April

At the tripartite meeting between PRLUG, Fusion, and Haringey Council on 18 April, we were assured that, from Monday 29 April, all hour-long sessions will run back to back (i.e. the lido will not close between sessions) and two lifeguards will be on duty for all sessions, with capacity increased to 70 swimmers per slot with the whole pool open.

Since then, new slots have appeared online for booking from Monday with back-to-back sessions from 07:00 to 14:00, followed by a 30-minute closure, then a 90-minute family session starting at 15:30 (some lane swimming available), followed by another 30-minute closure, and finally an hour of lane swimming at 17:30.

The removal of pool closures for large parts of the day is welcomed. A level of flexibility is restored if swimmers are able to join sessions at a time convenient to them, confident that they won’t be kicked out of the pool.

But capacity for all of the new sessions in the app is still, currently, limited to 25 (including the 90-minute family swim!), with six of Monday’s ten sessions already sold out.

We also consider the two daily half-hour closures excessive. With no extension of opening hours to take advantage of extra daylight, this new timetable represents a reduction in lido opening hours compared with this time last year.

At the time of writing, we don’t have a confirmed weekend timetable either.

We’ve asked Fusion again urgently to clarify the situation and in particular to stop capping bookings so drastically and preventing members from swimming in the lido.

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