SWIMMING lessons in West Fife will "continue to be delivered seamlessly" despite the imminent closure of a number of pools.
That's the reassurance from Fife Sports and Leisure Trust ahead of facilities shutting temporarily, for up to 18 months from April at Cowdenbeath, and permanently from this summer at Woodmill High School in Dunfermline.
It looks after Fife Council's sports and leisure centres and runs an award-winning 'Learn to Swim' programme, with up to 8,000 participants per week.
However, there have been long waiting lists for lessons and with pools closing and a doubt over the future of the facility at Inverkeithing High, there are concerns about how the Carnegie Leisure Centre in Dunfermline will cope.
However, a spokesperson for the trust told the Press: "With regards to the Cowdenbeath Learn to Swim programme, we are relocating it to Lochgelly High School and Bowhill Swimming Pool.
"We expect only a few customer requests to transfer to Carnegie, so it should not disrupt our operations or affect other customer requests.
"Woodmill's Learn to Swim programme will be moved from the high school to Carnegie."
Cowdenbeath Leisure Centre is closing in April for an £8 million refurbishment while Woodmill's community-use pool will be lost when the school relocates to the new Dunfermline Learning Campus, which will not have any swimming facilities, this summer.
By the time August comes around, only one West Fife high school - Inverkeithing - will have a pool and it's not clear yet if it will be retained when a replacement high school opens in Rosyth in a little over two years.
The trust spokesperson added: "Rest assured, the entire programme, including swimming instructors, will continue to be delivered seamlessly.
"We have already secured a space in the pool for this transition.
"This relocation will not affect our waiting lists, as it only involves moving customers from one centre to another."
Last year Dunfermline councillor Aude Boubaker-Calder submitted a motion to Fife Council calling for swimming lessons to be put back on the primary school curriculum in Fife.
A report will go before the education scrutiny committee next week.
In it, the council said that, in the summer of 2022, they identified more than 2,700 pupils from P5 to P7 who were non-swimmers.
A number were offered a week of free swimming lessons and the take-up from 19 schools, which included McLean, Bellyeoman, Pittencrieff, St Margaret's and Lynburn in Dunfermline, as well as Inverkeithing, ranged from 21 to 45 per cent.
The report concludes that targeted support is preferable to the overall cost of enabling all Primary 6 children in Fife - there are 4,024 - the opportunity to learn to swim over a 38-week period, which would be £2.2m.
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