Swimmers' six-month setback thanks to Leicester pool oil spill

A Leicester swimming club has been suffering from a longer-than-expected hiatus after an oil leak forced it to shut temporarily. The City of Leicester Swimming Club (CoL) is a performance-based group dedicated to helping the region’s swimmers reach their maximum potential, whether it be on a regional or international stage.

It normally trains several times a week at Braunstone pool, in Leicester, but since its closure three months ago, the prestigious club has been forced to outsource its classes, meaning that many of its top athletes have had their training schedules reduced to a fifth of their original schedule. This is not good news for the swimmers, many of whom are looking towards the Olympic trials which will be held in the first week of April.

It took 10 full days to drain the pool of “food grade oil” which is used to control its hydraulic system which changes the pool’s depth, but problems are ongoing. The club has recently received the news that it will be able to open fully in April this year.

“We have many swimmers here [at the club] who might swim five times a week who are now down to just one session in a completely different pool,” a source said. “Not having the pool open until April has a dramatic effect on the swimmers. Six and a half months away from their normal training schedule will now start to take its toll as the swimmers focus on Olympic trials and qualifying for British nationals.

“On October 28, we told the centre that we could smell oil,” the source said. “The pool has a moveable floor to adjust the depths. It’s operated by a hydraulic system and for the lubrication it uses food-grade oil.

“Around five years ago, the pipes burst, and we were in a similar situation, but that was turned around in a couple of weeks.

“Not only has CoL been affected, but also the learn-to-swim lessons, deep water swimming, and also local schools who use it have all been impacted as well. It’s been horrendous.

“There are two main seasons in competitive swimming; short course, which ends just before Christmas; and long course. We had 13 swimmers going to the short course nationals (Dec 14-17) in Sheffield, and we normally get them to race beforehand so we know where their progress is at. But all of a sudden, we had swimmers left with no contingency plan just a few weeks before competing.

“Before Covid we had spread ourselves across various pools, one of which being De Montfort University (DMU) – we still have a couple of sessions there – but after the pandemic we based ourselves more or less fully at Braunstone. Now, between there [DMU] and the New Parks Leisure Centre we’re down to around 20 hours of full time swimming a week, which is down from 55 hours.”

It took ten days for the pool to be drained, which finished just yesterday (February 15)

Members of CoL, as well as suffering from vastly reduced timetables, are also having to flit between several different centres and at very early times of the day to train. Several members of staff are having to hold early morning sessions six days a week, running from 5am through until 7pm, simply so the swimmers can “do what they need to do to get them through”.

A Leicester City Council spokesperson said: “The pool’s closure is due to the hydraulic piping used by the movable floor failing and causing an oil leak. This has meant we’ve had to empty the pool in order to repair the leaking pipework and clean the pool.

“Specialist contractors are needed for the work so we [are] unable to confirm yet when the pool will reopen, although we are doing all we can to ensure it is not closed for any longer than need be.

“We appreciate the disruption this is having on local swimming clubs and other users and we are working with them to put on sessions at our other facilities within the city to provide training and pool time for all.

“This has included putting on additional morning and evening sessions at New Parks for the City of Leicester Swimming Club, and also increasing the capacities for casual / lane swimming at New Parks for other customers.”

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