Swimming is the UK’s most popular sport, with over 2.6 million people taking part every week. However, Sport England has recently reported its disappointment and concern at an 8% drop in swimming participation across the UK, as highlighted in their latest Active People’s Survey.
Sport England’s Chief Executive Jennie Price says that swimming had, so far, failed to modernise and embrace the digital age, and had focused too much on its clubs rather than the whole population.
“A lot of other sports are very modern, but when you got to a swimming pool there is probably not a digital device in sight,” she says.
Bournemouth, one of the UK’s more active towns, is managing to buck the trend – with a 6.5% growth in the number of people taking to the water over the past 12 months.
BH Live Chief Executive and Sporta Chairman Peter Gunn explains.
“Our swimming pools across Bournemouth are a major component of our overall sport and fitness offer in the centres we operate in partnership with Bournemouth Borough Council. With only 3% of people nationally involved in club level swimming, and to embrace the renewed passion for swimming that London 2012 created, we looked at our pool programming to see how we could make all water-based activities more attractive across the whole community. We profiled non-swimmers and took a fresh look at the user journey – from antenatal to hydro mobility sessions – and found the main barriers to participation were fear and the perception that swimming is somehow boring.
To reverse these perceptions, we revisited our activity programme to include more specialist health and wellness classes to give non-swimmers more confidence and, while 3,500 people already attend our swimming lessons every week, we wanted them to enjoy it even more – so introduced more inflatable fun sessions during school holidays and weekends.
More people are swimming to improve their overall fitness levels and many customers are having lessons to improve technique. This has directly supported customer satisfaction leading to better fitness results out of their pool sessions. Increasing water confidence through one to one lessons encourages participation in other water based activities and classes too.
We are very pleased to see more people taking part, especially against the backdrop of a falling national trend, and will continue our campaign to encourage more people of all ages and abilities into the water.”
Swimming is a feature of Sport England’s popular This Girl Can campaign and the opening shot in its video to encourage women of all shapes, sizes and ages to take up sport. The film has so far clocked up around 5 million hits on YouTube.
BH Live is an active supporter of the campaign, promoting it on social media and conducting its own, mini-campaign with women attending classes and gym sessions at Littledown Centre, the second busiest leisure centre in the UK
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Notes to the editor
About BH Live
BH Live is the South Coast’s leading operator of leisure and event venues – a social enterprise that designs and builds engaging experiences to inspire people and enrich lives. With over 2.5 million visits a year and over £31 million turnover, the organisation is changing lives – placing it at the heart of the UK’s growing social economy. In 2013/14, BH Live hosted 423 shows, sold over half a million cultural, sporting and entertainment tickets, clocked up 1.8 million leisure centre visits and welcomed 88,000 conference and exhibition delegates which contributed over £45 million to the local economy.
For further press information:
Elizabeth Symmons
PR & Corporate Communications Executive, BH Live
Elizabeth.Symmons@bhlive.co.uk