OPTIMISTS SWIM TOUR

I've made a map of all the pool campaigns I could find in the UK. I figured: if we put them together, we could a) have the campaign addresses to hand if we wanted to join in and b) different campaigns could talk to each other about good practice, etc. It's also interesting to get a picture of how things are across the country. Grim, mostly. 

Sadly, this is going to be an on-going map as Tory cuts bite. Libraries and pools, people. Libraries and pools. (Someone else has done a libraries map, I think, and if there's a link for that, let's have it.) 

I've called it Optimists Swim Tour because if you're campaigning you need optimism that you'll succeed.  I have included a couple of success stories because campaigners need inspiration, and successful campaigners need celebrating. The only successes I've put on are recent - I've discovered two things doing this map. First, there are pools that have been run as Community Interest Companies, successfully, for some years. Chapeltown Baths, in Sheffield. Tadcaster Baths in N. Yorks. The Lenton Centre in Nottingham. It's not right for every pool (Moseley Baths in Birmingham for instance - asset transfer there, according to their Friends group, would be suicidal as the building needs £8m of repair). But CIC is an interesting way forward, imo. 

The second  thing I've found, which I kinda knew: you don't have to dig deep into the history of ANY open lido in the UK to discover the threat of closure has loomed, and been fought off. It seems that 'they' (oh god don't make me sound like a conspiracy theorist) have always had their beady greedy eye on our lidos. It is for that reason that I'm trained in full contact unarmed combat. *adopts the stance*

Anyway, the map is here.  It's MapBasic, I'm not pretending to be a cartographer (although I do have Geography A level. Oh yeah.)  If you want to offer to tart it up, get in touch. If you want to add pool campaigns, you can add a comment below or find me on Twitter @jennylandreth.