STROUD’S open air pool is set to welcome swimmers this weekend on the traditional opening date.
Stratford Park Leisure Centre’s 50 metre spring-fed Lido pool is perfect for a cooling dip and it always opens on the Saturday before the Spring Bank Holiday.
Weather permitting, it is open until September 1, 2019 from 11am every day.
Admission is £4.50 for adults and £2.70 for children - under eights must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or adult over 18, with a maximum of two children per adult.
There is also a toddler pool alongside.
It is open until at least 5pm as a minimum every day including Bank Holidays but staff endeavour to keep it open until 7pm during busy periods.
Thanks to partnership work between owners Stroud District Council, a new Friends of Stratford Park Lido group, Stroud Town Council, South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and SLM Leisure (Everyone Active) to improve the Lido, college construction students have completed repair work as part of their course.
SDC has included the Lido in its Corporate Delivery Plan for 2019/20, and is supporting the development of a business plan for its improvement.
That could include extended opening hours and heating the pool once again, as it was before the start of the Second World War but this time with a renewable energy source.
Stroud Urban District Council commissioned the Lido which was built in 1937 by the council’s engineer and surveyor FS Cutler at a cost of around £20,000. It is managed by SLM Leisure, along with Stratford Park Leisure Centre.
The Friends of Stratford Park Lido (
stratfordparklido.org) is a community group run by volunteers which is working with Stroud District Council and SLM Leisure to develop the Stratford Park Lido, restoring and protecting it as a high-quality community heritage asset.
A key action of SDC’s new Corporate Delivery Plan, adopted at Full Council on Thursday, May 16 is ‘In Partnership with Stroud Town Council and Friends of the Lido submit a bid to National Lottery Heritage Fund for additional funding to refurbish Stratford Park Lido.’
To connect with the Friends on Facebook, visit
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