As we wrap up an incredible year at Birtley Community Pool, we want to wish all our customers, volunteers, and supporters a very Merry Christmas. Your enthusiasm, kindness, and loyalty have helped our community pool continue to grow and thrive.

We hope you enjoy a healthy and relaxing festive season, and we look forward to welcoming you back in the New Year!

Christmas Inflatables Sessions

Join us for festive fun!

Inflatable sessions with Christmas music will take place on:

• 13th December 1:30pm & 2:45pm
• 14th December 1:30pm & 2:45pm
• 20th December 1:30pm & 2:45pm
• 21st December 1:30pm & 2:45pm

A great way for families to celebrate the season with a splash!

Christmas Opening Hours

• 23rd December Timetable: We will be open for half a day only — Please check our website or reception for specific session times.
• Closed from 23rd December at 1pm
• Reopening Saturday 3rd January at 7am

December 23rd Timetable

January 2026 Timetable

Meet the Team

Trustee – HR: Tracy is from Birtley and has been swimming at the pool since she was young. Her dad was a founder of Birtley Swimming Club, so the pool has always been an important part of her family. Since retiring in 2020, she’s been keen to support the community by becoming a trustee. With her HR career at BT, she now helps the pool with organisational work and people management.

Trustee – Customers: Jackie supports the pool with her experience in customer services, PR, marketing and volunteering. She provides advice on how we can communicate better with our customers and plays a big part in organising and supporting our volunteers. We’re grateful for the time and skills she brings to the pool.

Lead Leisure Attendant: You may have seen Elise in her new blue shirt, or in our recent promotional video! She’s Birtley born and bred and has been with us for a year, recently promoted to Lead Leisure Attendant after showing real dedication and growth. She works hard, supports the team, and we’re proud to have her as one of the Leads guiding our Leisure Attendants.

Leisure Attendant / Acting Lead Leisure Attendant: Megan works full-time as a Leisure Attendant and often steps up into the Lead Leisure Attendant role. She’s reliable, hard-working, and a dedicated team member. Megan is known for her great attitude, and her love of Oreos! If you’re ever wondering why the vending machine is out of them, she may be the culprit!

Parking Update

Statement from Local Councillor Joe Sowerby

“It has been brought to the attention of local councillors that some users of Birtley Community Pool have been parking on the surrounding streets. We understand that this is an issue for residents, however the pool has provided sufficient parking options for pool users, but some are personally choosing to ignore this advice and causing issues for residents. Whilst infuriating there is little to be done except remind users not to park in residential areas, where possible we will try and come up with solutions if the issue keeps happening.”

— Cllr Joe Sowerby, Birtley and Barley Mow for Gateshead Council

Customer Reminder

To help maintain a positive relationship with our neighbours, please:

• Use our car park or alternative nearby public car parks, such as the large parking area near Morrisons during busy times (Mon to Fri 3–7pm).
• Do not park in the residential streets by the pool.
• Park within designated bays in the pool car park, please do not take up two spaces.
• Thank you for helping us keep our community respectful and welcoming!

Facility & Building Updates

Improvement Works During Christmas Closure

During our closure period, you may notice lights on inside the building. This is our staff working onsite to:

• Refresh facilities
• Carry out maintenance
• Improve the pool environment for the New Year

This is also the perfect time to share your feedback!

If there’s something you’d love to see improved, updated, repaired, or added, please let us know (feedback form on our website, QR codes in the building), your input helps shape our community pool.

Renewable Investment Update

We’re committed to reducing our energy consumption and carbon footprint.

We are currently applying for funding to install:

• Solar energy panels
• Destratification fans

These improvements will help reduce our running costs and help us become more financially sustainable for the future.

We are pleased to share that we have already secured part of the required funding, and we are optimistic about securing the remaining amount in the coming months.

Random Acts of Kindness

Sharing a lovely act of kindness happening around the pool! A generous member of our community has been creating small crochet items for people to find as part of Random Acts of Crochet Kindness.

She’s even made some little crochet fish especially for us, keep an eye out and see if you can spot any of these hidden around the building and near the pool. If you find one, feel free to take a photo and share it in the Random Acts of Crochet Kindness UK Facebook group & help spread the joy.

These colourful creations are sure to brighten your day, so have a look around… you never know where one might appear!

We’re Hiring

Operations Coordinator

We’re looking for a motivated and proactive Operations Coordinator to join our team!

• Salary: £26,754 per year

(plus early shift payments)

• Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours
• Role: Supporting operations, customer experience, leading staff, and day-to-day facility management.

Email completed applications to: info@birtleycommunitypool.org.uk

Volunteers Needed

Whether you have a few spare hours or can commit to a regular schedule, your support will help us continue providing excellent services to the community.

We are currently recruiting for the following volunteer roles:

• Practical Tasks Volunteers
• Administration & Reception Volunteers
• Fundraising & Income Generation Volunteers

If you’d like to get involved, please email us at info@birtleycommunitypool.org.uk

Your time and effort will be invaluable in supporting the pool’s success!

Donations

Help Us Make a Splash! 💦

We’re still fundraising for exciting new inflatable obstacle course sections, and your support can make a big difference! Donations are gratefully received via our GoFundMe page: gofundme.com/new-obstacle-course-inflatables-for-birtley-community-pool

Get in touch with Birtley Community Pool

Meet the Team

Senior Operations Manager – Lewis Herbertson

Manages the pool, easily spotted in a blue shirt. Lewis oversees the entire facility, ensuring everything runs smoothly day to day.

Business Support Manager – Amber Barry

Handles all things administrative, communications, and social media. Look for her in a navy shirt—she keeps the behind-the-scenes work flowing smoothly.

Chair of the board – Yvonne Probert

Yvonne grew up swimming at Birtley Pool and has been passionate about its community ever since. With over 20 years’ experience in the voluntary sector, she brings leadership, dedication, and a love of swimming to her role as Chair.

Treasurer – Matthew Grant

A competitive swimmer and experienced accountant, Matthew played a key role in bringing the pool back to life. His work on business planning and fundraising helped secure the funding needed to reopen and his priority now is to ensure the pool is financially sustainable for the future.

Volunteers Needed

November/December Timetable Updates

Get in touch with Birtley Community Pool

It is one year since Birtley Community Pool opened its doors to our community!

When the council closed the pool in 2023, a dedicated group of local volunteers came together to fight for its future. Thanks to incredible fundraising, crowdfunding, and community spirit, we registered as a charity, gathered community support, refurbished the pool and reopened in mid-September 2024 as a community-run, not-for-profit facility.

Just weeks later, on October 3rd 2024, we were honoured to be officially opened by His Royal Highness Prince William himself.

Over the past year, the pool has been filled with the laughter of children learning to swim, families making memories, and individuals of all ages improving their health, wellbeing and confidence in the water. None of this would be possible without YOU – our customers, members, supporters, funders, volunteers and staff – everyone in our community!

Check out the video below to hear why swimming is such an important life skill, and how together, we’re making a real difference.

Here’s to many more years of swimming, learning, and community activities at Birtley.

1 Year Open

Get in touch with Birtley Community Pool

Our challenge to make Birtley Community Pool financially sustainable

Our first year has been very challenging from a financial perspective.  We knew from the start that achieving financial sustainability would be a huge challenge, as this was the reason why Gateshead Council closed the pool in July 2023.  The council had made significant operating losses at Birtley Swimming Centre for many years, including a loss of £349,000 in the year to 31st March 2020, which was the last year that the pool was running with normal opening hours prior to COVID 19.

We have made significant cost savings in our first year, compared to the costs that Gateshead Council were incurring.  These include the following major improvements:

• Electricity consumption has been reduced by 49%, by replacing the existing lighting with more efficient LED lighting, reducing the pool circulation pump frequency overnight to 50% and not using the air handling units overnight
• Gas consumption has been reduced by 19% due to replacing the old, inefficient boilers and water heaters with new assets
• Repairs and maintenance costs have been reduced by 70% by using appropriately skilled trustees, volunteers and pool management to make many of the repairs free of charge, rather than contractors
• As a charity, we are exempt from paying business rates. Gateshead Council paid £37k for business rates each year
• Employment costs have been reduced by 47%, mainly through optimising shift rotas, and paying salaries at rates which are competitive and in line with the Community Leisure sector
• The other main employment cost reduction has been to use unpaid trustees and volunteers for many of the functions that Gateshead Council’s employees performed, such as Finance, Payroll, HR, Facilities Maintenance, most of the repairs to our assets and working on reception at busy times.
• We have also experienced some additional costs compared to the Council, notably a 50% increase in the gas price and significantly higher insurance costs as a standalone entity.

Financial results for our first year of operation

We have just finalised our financial results for our first year to 31st March 2025, following completion of a financial review by an independent chartered accountant.  Our charity accounts, and the Trustees Annual Report, were submitted to the Charity Commission on August 28th 2025 and copies are available on our website or in paper form at reception.  The financial information in the next two paragraphs is drawn from these two documents.

We incurred £63.2k of operating costs for the period from when we took over the running of the pool from the Council on May 31st 2024, up to when we opened the pool to the public on September 16th 2024.  These included employment costs for the staff we recruited from July 2024 onwards.  We also incurred expenditure on chemicals, electricity, gas, water, insurance, materials and equipment and some initial repairs during the same period.  We had anticipated that we would incur significant pre-opening costs and had raised funding to cover these costs.

From mid-September 2024 to the end of March 2025, we also made a significant operating loss of £69k.   These initial trading losses were higher than we expected, and they were only partly covered by funds we had raised in advance.  However, additional donations were made by some individuals and from other sources to cover the additional losses.

We have made further losses in the period from April 2025 to July 2025, although these have been reducing in size, as our costs reduce in the summer months and our income has increased due to more customer footfall.  We have also been identifying opportunities to further reduce costs and are in the process of implementing the required improvements. Unfortunately, these efficiencies will not be sufficient to ensure our income covers our costs through the autumn and winter, when our costs increase and customer footfall tends to reduce, particularly in December.

We need to increase our prices from Monday 8th September 2025

We therefore need to increase our prices by an average of 10% in September to increase our income, so that it will cover our operating costs going forward.  The impact on individual session prices and on swimming membership costs is not significant, as you can see from the table in the next section.

Individual session prices will typically increase by 50p and our monthly membership price will increase by £3.  The price increase for members direct debit payments will be implemented from October, giving members a month’s notice if they wish to cancel their membership.

We are also increasing our charges to the organisations which hire the pool by a similar percentage.

We have compared our new prices to the prices charged by other nearby pools for similar activities, and we are confident that our prices will still be competitive.  We have also produced a detailed forecast of our financial results and cashflow to the end of March 2026, which incorporates this price increase.  This has demonstrated that our income from customers will cover our costs from September 2025 onwards.  If we keep our prices the same, we will not be able to cover our operating costs over this coming winter.

Birtley Community Pool prices from September 2025

The new prices are shown on the table below, together with the existing prices and the percentage increase for each type of activity

We appreciate that increasing prices is not ideal but we believe that this is necessary to ensure the pool is financially sustainable and remains open for the future. We hope that you will continue to come to the pool after we have increased our prices, to continue enjoying the benefits of swimming in your local community pool.

Yvonne Probert – Chair                        Matthew Grant – Treasurer

On behalf of the Birtley Community Aquatic Centre Trustee Board

Get in touch with Birtley Community Pool