Pool Plan Halted After Over 1,000 Sign Petition Against It

Proposal was to shorten part of main pool to convert into a teaching area

The existing pool at Putney Leisure Centre. Picture: Places Leisure

June 5, 2026

Plans to shorten Putney Leisure Centre’s much-loved 33-metre swimming pool have been put on hold after hundreds of residents protested that they had never been consulted about the change.

Users of the centre were taken by surprise on Tuesday (2 June) when operator Places Leisure emailed members to announce that the pool would close on 1 July for refurbishment and reopen in early September as a reconfigured 25-metre pool with a separate teaching pool. The message was the first time many had heard that the 33-metre length  was set to be permanently lost.

By this Thursday over 1,000 people had signed a petition urging Wandsworth Council and Places Leisure to halt the plans and consult properly before making any irreversible changes. Many swimmers said they were “shocked” and “angry” that such a significant alteration had been communicated with barely a month’s notice.

The council’s new Conservative administration has now confirmed that it has paused the closure, citing concerns about the lack of engagement with residents and regular users. The decision follows Labour’s loss of control of the authority in the 7 May local elections, leaving the Conservatives running the council as a minority.

Councillor Ethan Brooks, the new Cabinet Member for the Environment, said the council had instructed Places Leisure to stop the planned shutdown while a proper consultation is designed.

“There has not been sufficient engagement with residents and regular users on the proposed works,” he said. “We recognise that recent communications, shared without council oversight, have caused concern, and we apologise for this. We will now reset the approach, working with Places Leisure to deliver a more robust and transparent engagement process.”

The council remains committed to investing in the centre, he added, but wants to ensure the refurbishment “improves the quality, accessibility and sustainability of the facility for the future”.

Resident Dan Hawtrey, who has swum at Putney Leisure Centre for years, launched the petition after receiving the email on Tuesday.

“The whole way it’s been done has been so badly managed and communicated,” he said. “To not be consulted — it’s astounding that anyone would think that’s acceptable because it’s clearly a major change to the pool.”

He said management had indicated that the redesigned 25-metre pool would operate with a booking system allowing up to 14 swimmers per lane — a number he believes would still leave the pool overcrowded.

“Fourteen people in a 25-metre lane is actually quite a lot of people and it turns into a queue rather than nice up-and-down rhythmic swimming,” he said. “It’s definitely a degradation of the facility.”

Many long-distance swimmers, clubs and regular users rely on the 33-metre length for training, he added, and fear it may be lost forever if the redesign proceeds.

The previous Labour administration reappointed Places Leisure to run eight of the borough’s leisure centres last June, signing a 10-year contract that began in October. At the time, the council announced £24 million of refurbishment works across the estate, including Putney Leisure Centre, but did not publish detailed plans.

Places Leisure has since claimed that the pool reconfiguration was approved under that contract. The council now says the operator’s email was sent “in the council’s name” without its oversight.

The pool, opened in 1968 and designed by Powell and Moya, is considered architecturally significant. Its unusual L-shaped layout, incorporating a diving area into the main tank, helped it win a RIBA award the following year.

The petition argues that the 33-metre length is central to the pool’s appeal and that shrinking it would reduce capacity and worsen overcrowding.

“Modernise the centre — please do,” it reads. “But don’t take away the one thing that makes it worth coming to for many people. A permanent change to a pool the public owns and pays for, decided behind closed doors and announced barely a month before it shuts — without consulting a single resident or member. This is our pool. We deserve a say in its future.”

Campaigners say they welcome the pause but want firm assurances that the 33-metre pool will be protected.

Work had been due to start on 1 July. For now, it will not. The council has promised a full engagement process before any final decision is made — a process that, residents say, very nearly did not happen at all.

The petition, Save Putney’s 33-metre pool, remains open . 

Written with contributions from Charlotte Lilywhite - Local Democracy Reporter