Your Lido needs your help

We need your support to get planning permission for our latest sustainability project at Cheltenham Lido

How can you help?

Please click here to see our complete planning application and leave your supportive comments. If we don’t secure planning permission, we’ll lose £310,000 of grant funding and face difficulties in future years to cover rising energy costs.

Scheme Benefits

The reintroduction of a safe pedestrian walkway through to the lido gates

In 1935 the lido car park had a walkway from Keynsham Road to the main gates, we are going to reintroduce this walkway to provide a safe pedestrian route. The walkway will be landscaped on either side with small shrubs.

Cycle racks located in the safe pedestrian zone

Cyclists can also get off and use the walkway to reach the new bike racks, which have CCTV cameras for extra security

Safe queuing areas for swimmers out of the way of traffic

When it’s hot and busy, you can queue safely away from the cars in the car park. The queuing zone is partly shaded by our trees.

Disabled parking spaces closer to the lido entrance 

The seven disabled parking spaces will all be located closer to the lido entrance.

Installation of EV charging stations

At first, seven EV charging points will be available for you to use while you swim. This number will go up to 14 charging points in the future.

Installation of solar panels on top of car ports 

The car park will have four bays of carports with solar PV panels on them. They will cover 71 spaces and produce power that will lower our utility bills and cut down our carbon footprint.

Additional public parking spaces with a more intuitive layout 

The new layout in the carpark will provide for an all year round increase of public spaces from 119 to 143.

Car park completely resurfaced 

Once all the cabling has been installed the car park will have a new surface throughout.

Why do we need to do it?

Financial Security

The car park project will be the most costly one we have undertaken since our charity assumed management of the lido, but also the most vital for reducing our expenses in the future. If we don’t adopt alternative/sustainable energy sources for our pool, the lido will face financial difficulties in the coming years.

We have secured two grants to support the project, one from Sport England for £300,000 and another from Cheltenham Borough Council for £10,000.

These funds have to be used by March 2025 or we will forfeit them. The money can only be allocated to sustainability projects.

Our charity will be contributing at least £250,000 towards the project.

The entire project will have a payback period of 9 years.

Energy Production

The 483 solar pv panels will produce 93% of the electricity we need on our site, protecting the lido from rising electricity costs in the future.

The panels will annually produce 244,886 kWh of electricity

Our current electricity consumption is 261,442 kWh

Substation

To set up 483 solar pv panels we need to install a substation as required by the National Grid to handle the power properly.

The substation will also allow us to keep making sustainability improvements in the future, such as installing an air source heat pump to cut down our gas usage.

How can you help?

Please click here to see our complete planning application and leave your supportive comments. If we don’t secure planning permission, we’ll lose £310,000 of grant funding and face difficulties in future years to cover rising energy costs.

Comments should ideally be sent in by the 8th May, but will be attached to the planning application up until the 24th May.

If you have any questions relating to this application please email directly to julie@sandfordparkslido.org.uk