After a difficult 2018 coping with the after effects of Storm Hector and the builders going into administration part way through a £100k Sport England funded refurbishment, Shap Pool is back open and better than ever at 1pm on Saturday 25th May.
Not only have they completed the refurbishment with a fabulous new rain shelter but local artist Kayleigh Richardson has teamed up with local children at Shap School to create a vibrant water themed 2 by 12 metre mural to adorn the new pool wall.
“As ever we wanted to involve the local community in the redevelopment” says Treasurer Kate Chambers, “so we ran a competition for the school to enter ideas for the new mural and Kayleigh agreed to paint it for us. The finished mural looks brilliant and makes a really striking feature of the new wall”.
“After all the upsets of last year, we were so pleased when local builder David Mallinson came to our rescue to finish the works,” says Kate. “He’s done a great job and we can finally say we are now finished. He made us a great space under the new pergola to put the mural.”
The winner of the mural competition is Willow Wrobel with runners up Sophie Sproat, Maisy Green and Emily Cross. “There were so many brilliant ideas” says Kayleigh, who has spent the last few weeks completing the mural. “It was such a big space to fill and I could take inspiration from a number of the entries to complete the finished artwork.” “We are so pleased with the finished result,” said Kate, “we hope the children are really pleased with how their ideas have been used and it will be there for everyone to see for many years to come”.
Re-opening at 1pm with the traditional “Shap Splash”, the new facilities will be celebrated with free entry all day. Drinks and confectionery will be on sale, season tickets can be purchased and the pool is now also able to take card payments.
“We have done a lot to make the facilities more modern and easier to use for everyone. The new facilities incorporate accessible changing facilities and easier step entry into the pool. We are still looking for volunteers and we still have a chairman vacancy if anyone would be interested in joining us to help”, says Kate. “We want to give a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us to get the refurbishment done over the past few years. It’s really good to see it all come together at last.”
