Gordon Brown clutches straws by the pool

Gordon Brown hopes to make swimming free for everyone in England before 2012.

Clearly desperate to win some friends, the British Prime Minister today announced stage one of an ambitious plan to get more people involved in sport ahead of the London Olympics, with over-60s the first to benefit from free access to public swimming pools.

Helping Over-60s may not seem like the most forward-looking measure, but sports minister Andy Burnham insists everyone will be able to get into pools for nothing for the start of the London Games.

The Under-16s are next on the list, with the rest of the English population to follow in time for the 2012 games.

Burnham said: “The big vision here is that in the same way that museums and galleries were made free we want, in a focused and progressive way, to remove entry charges for swimming.

“The big picture here is getting free universal swimming by 2012. This is a real Labour policy - getting people to take part in sport which is good for them and good for the country.”

Local authorities in England are to get £80m next year to scrap charges for Over-60s, and a further £50m to help with the upkeep of the pools.

The hope is to get two million more people taking part in some form of physical exercise by 2012.
However, Liberal Democrats’ culture, media and sport spokesman Don Foster says they have no chance of meeting that target.

“We’ve lost an incredible amount of time waiting for these plans,” he said.

“There are lots of organisations across the country working very hard to try and do this, but it all should have started a lot earlier.”

Olympic gold medallist Adrian Moorhouse welcomed the plans.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “I think it’s a great thing. I think you’ve got to start somewhere and swimming is a good sport to start with.

“You can’t start with everybody straight away, but over-60s will really benefit.”

In addition, there is set to be an increase of Olympic-size 50m pools from 23 to 30 by 2012.

Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell said: “There is something for everyone in our plans - every part of the country, every section of the population.”

Source: BBC News