Having the ability to swim is a key life saving skill, but many locally have been left treading water, waiting years to get lessons, with reports that some pregnant mothers are putting their children’s names down before they are even born.
Commenting yesterday on the situation, a spokesperson for Dumfries and Galloway Council blamed covid for the escalating list.
She said: “Whilst there is a high demand for lessons, we currently deliver swimming lessons to over 600 children at DG1 each week.
“The facility is currently operating at capacity for their current swimming lesson offering and we do have a waiting list for swimming lessons for beginner level only.
“Our waiting list expanded significantly due to the reduced capacity available to deliver lessons whilst we operated from the temporary swimming pool at Dumfries Ice Bowl and was then further exaggerated due to Covid closures when no swimmers could progress through our swim scheme but we continued to receive new enquiries for additional children to be added to the waiting list.
“Whilst we now have over 1200 children on our DG1 waiting list due to the above backlog, 33 per cent of the list are too young to be offered a lesson space at present.
“The situation is frustrating and the importance of water safety in an area such as ours is very important.”
They say measures have been taken to try and get as many children into lessons as possible within existing resources and available teachers, adding: “At DG1 we do have a proposal to expand lessons to another evening, however to do this we need to have not only the swim teaching staff trained and recruited, we also need additional lifeguarding staff to supervise the pool spaces. We are actively trying to recruit to lifeguarding and swim teaching positions currently, but as has been seen in leisure nationally, there has been a reduction in suitable applicants applying.
“We would encourage anyone who is interested in becoming a swim teacher to enquire at their local council leisure facility to find out more.”
