Alresford Primary School needs £30k for swimming pool refurb

New Covid guidelines have meant that Alresford Primary School’s swimming pool is in need of extensive work to bring it up to the latest specifications.

Alresford Primary School PTA launched a GoFundMe post in March until the fundraising efforts were taken over by the school.

Antonia Lacey, who has two children attending Alresford School and one at Elmstead Primary School is one of the key figures behind the fundraiser.

She said: “Both schools were supposed to use the swimming pool for lessons this term, I moved here from Bognor Regis ten months ago and have never fundraised before but I wanted to help.

“This year, because we had no pool, we have to pay to transport our Year 6 children to a leisure centre.

“This cost the school £240 for travel and £100 for lessons each time. We were only able to secure lessons for six weeks costing us £2,040 and not all of our children were able to reach the standard.

“Due to a lack of availability we were unable to secure further lessons for them."

Following the pool’s closure due to Covid, headteacher Sarah Dukelow requested for companies to come into the school to quote for a deep clean.

Post-covid, The Pool Water Treatment Advisory Group (PWTAG) guidelines have changed around pool cleaning, water treatment and hygiene standards.

Currently, there is one cleaning point in the pool which treats the water with acid then chlorine, however, a secondary point needs to be installed.

With the current filtering and pipe system the pool capacity is currently five bodies, in order to run swimming lessons this needs to be 30 bodies.

SPS Pools in Holland-on-Sea have quoted the school for £30,000, this does not include the cost of electricians and plumbers.

Antonia added: “Now more than ever it is vital that we invest in the mental wellbeing of our children and the pool provides the school a valuable opportunity to achieve this.”

For more information and to donate visit bit.ly/3DsvNny.