Last week the government announced that the free swimming programme for the over 6o’s that the previous government introduced, will end in July, not as was widely anticipated, March 2011.  As soon as FOGL have further information as to how this will affect Lido swimmers who have benefited thus far from this scheme, over the remainder of the season we will post it here. For now, this information can be found on the Guildford Lido website (www.guildfordlido.co.uk)

“The new Coalition Government have announced that from 31st July 2010 the central government funding of free swimming for the over 60’s will cease. Council’s will be asked to pay back a proportion of their grants and operators will revert back to concessionary charging from August onwards.  We are looking into the subject in detail and will be able to update customers in due course. The original funding was to be reviewed at the end of March 2011 however the new government in an attempt to reduce the current deficit have decided to pull the funding”.