6 October 2007
London Swimming (Amateur Swimming Association – London) is responsible for the development of all aquatic activities in London.
Crystal Palace was scheduled for closure for a £4 million refurbishment in November. Preparations for the refurbishment uncovered traces of asbestos so the entire site was temporarily closed on 13th September. The London Development Agency (owner) and Greenwich Leisure Ltd (operator) made significant steps to relocate the diving land training centre into a temporary facility on the site to enable training to continue. Representatives of UK Sport and British Diving visited the new temporary facility and declared it ‘the best diving land training centre in the UK’. Due to the nature of the asbestos and refurbishment work it will not be possible to reopen the diving pool until June 2008.
It is important to note that Diving training is composed of 60% land training / 40% water training. Losing the pool is a significant blow to diving provision in London however this had been planned and all this has done is brought the November timescale forward.
London Swimming was approached by Crystal Palace Diving Institute (CPDI) who are the business operating the largest diving programme from Crystal Palace concerning their predicament on the 18th September and asked whether we could purchase ‘temporary diving boards’ to be placed in nearby pools to continue the ‘wet programme’.
As this spend constituted our entire Diving budget for the next year London Swimming consulted with the London Diving Committee by email and conference call to ascertain their support. Agreement was reached and a contract was then drawn up and placed before CPDI on 4 October.
London Swimming is keen to support diving at Crystal Palace but a few important clarifications need to be made:
- Dry land training provision was in place within 10 days of the unforeseen early closure of the building due to health and safety.
- The Diving pool at Crystal Palace was planned to be closed from November to June 2008 and alternative pool provision had already been planned.
- Crystal Palace houses the only 10 metre board in London but there are others available up to 5 metres at Waltham Forest, Barnet, Havering, Wandsworth, Merton, Hayes. The next nearest 10 metre board is Southampton.
- Crystal Palace is a talent identification centre for diving. No lottery funded athletes currently train from this site. Of the 44 athletes on the talent programme only 2 need to train on boards higher than 5 metres.
Colin Brown
Director London Swimming
For Diving enquiries please contact Jo Calvino, Diving Development Officer on 07796 261693
