East London Swimming?

In four years London will have the best aquatic facility in the UK but when the Games (Olympic and Paralympic) have runs their course will local people really benefit and how is that challenge impacting on aquatics in the 5 host Boroughs?

Greenwich, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest are called the ‘host Boroughs’ because it is on their land that the Olympic park and therefore the majority of permanent venues will be built. Obviously we are focused on the Aquatics Centre which technically will be in Newham but in reality easily accessible by all the others. There are other Boroughs in particular Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge who are potentially key players in the development of aquatics in this area of East London but there role can be covered in future articles.

If you are going to be able to establish what impact the Games will have had on this area of London you need to know where you are now or in this case a year or two ago and track what happens in between. Each of the 5 Boroughs has a population between 200,000- and 250,000 (same size as Newcastle Upon Tyne). London Swimming (asa London region) committed themselves to producing an annual report on the state of aquatics (learn to swim, school, general and club) in the 5 Host Boroughs. The first report was produced in earlier this year and was focused on the numbers rather than narrative. Numbers are important and revealed some very interesting trends.

In particular:

· 45% of Tower Hamlets residents are White British but they take up 70% of the places on the learn to swim programme.
· Whereas Newham with 34% white British population take up a comparable 39% of places on the learn to swim programme
· Take up of learn to swim lessons from the eligible population 5-12 year olds per Borough varied considerably from Waltham Forest (19%) to Tower Hamlets (7%) although Hackney was even lower with 3% but this was related to considerable pool closures.
· Only a very small number of athletes progressed on to county, regional and national competition with Waltham Forest and Greenwich providing the majority of these.

The full report can be downloaded here 

However, numbers only tell part of the story so each Borough is going to undertake a quality assessment by an independent expert. Greenwich (Doug Campbell) and Newham (Nick Juba) completed there’s earlier in the year with challenging reports circulated to all affected. Both councils are now working hard to put together a multi aquatic pathway that not only increases participation, allows for performance but stacks up financially. Waltham Forest is the next Borough up for its quality assessment with Hackney and Tower Hamlets not to far behind. These reports will not only recommend how the pathways should work at a Borough level but also across the sub-region. For competitive swimming this might look at establishing a hub with performance coaching out of the heated 50 metre London Fields Lido in Hackney as a base camp to the future ascent on the Aquatics Centre. Funding submissions are sitting with Sport England with potential implementation for these exciting pathways due in 2009 and 2010.

The challenge of placing the Aquatics Centre in a relatively barren aquatics environment isn’t just related to athletes and coach development. If we have the premier competition facility in the UK then logic dictates then at some point some of the big national and international competitions will also be hosted there. This means that we need officials and organisers to raise their game from running club, county and regional to national and above. Fortunately funding has been gained from the London Development Agency for the next year for officials bursaries which match the coaches bursaries deployed this year which saw London coaches and teachers benefit from £87,000 of funding for qualifications. 

In summary the 5 host Boroughs are a remarkably diverse and large population but taken as a whole aquatics is not one of their current strengths. However, clear plans based on independent quality assessments are being drawn up so that when the Aquatics Centre opens in legacy mode, predicted 2013-4, then the million people who live within a three mile radius can be amongst those who really benefit from what will be a remarkable facility.