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09.06.10

Making a Splash on Weekends

Children and young people in Wales will now be able to enjoy swimming and other leisure centre activities for free at weekends – thanks to the Welsh Assembly Government.

Changes to the popular free swimming scheme announced yesterday (Tuesday 8 June) are designed to make it more widely available, all year round. Since its launch in 2004 the free swimming scheme has proved hugely popular with tens of thousands of young people taking to the pool and enjoying regular exercise in the school holidays.

Gower AM Edwina Hart said:

“It is one of the Welsh Assembly Government’s top priorities to do all we can to encourage a healthier Wales and the free swimming initiative is an important part of our strategy.

“I would like as many young people as possible in Gower to take advantage of the free swim scheme. The initiative has been tremendously successful so far.”

A change to the minimum criteria of the current scheme means that local authorities will now offer free swimming sessions or other leisure centre activities for children aged 16 and under on weekends as well as school holidays.

The new agreement with local authorities also places more emphasis on delivery of structured sessions, which have greater participation and will help deliver the Welsh Assembly Government’s aim of every child learning to swim by the age of 11.

The new scheme has been made possible by changes to the minimum criteria for the Free Swimming scheme in agreement with the local authorities. Therefore there is no additional cost for this new scheme.

Some local authorities in Wales have already started offering the new sessions and all are expected to be up and running by September 2010.