With the importance of water safety dominating the news currently, Phil Weston from Waterside Pool in Ryde on the Isle of Wight contacted STA via our Facebook page to tell us about the success they are having.

Phil wrote: “We have water safety built into all our swimming lessons both group and school. This means that just in the ten weeks run up to the summer, we taught water safety to 800 children (you can do the math over the year!).

We also have a page dedicated to water safety on our website and our pool exterior is covered with nine 6ft x 4ft banners with water safety messages from all the schools around Ryde. This means the Ryde children have thought about the dangers and are giving their advice via the banners to every person walking past our pool, and on their way to the golden beaches. This is then supported with our Beach Lifeguards looking after the beach users, and our Pool Lifeguards keeping all the swimmers safe.

Our safety record on an island surrounded by water is therefore no fluke. Not bad for a Community Trust run pool!”