Leisure centre and swimming pool finance for operators, trusts and swim schools

A leisure centre usually earns from several streams. Memberships, often by monthly direct debit, cover the gym, classes and swimming. Pay-and-play swims, lane hire for clubs, school swimming lessons and a learn-to-swim programme fill the pool timetable. Sports halls, courts, parties, a café and vending add more. Swim schools earn mainly from termly or monthly lesson fees, which gives them predictable income if their waiting lists hold up.

The costs are heavy and hard to cut. A pool has to be heated, the water treated and the air handled whether ten people swim or two hundred. Energy, chemicals, lifeguards and qualified pool plant operators run all year. Pool plant, filters, pumps, boilers and air handling units wear out on a cycle, and tiling, changing rooms and roofs need major work every so often.

• Replacing pool plant: filters, pumps, dosing and UV systems, and controls
• Cutting energy costs with heat pumps, solar panels, pool covers, LED lighting or heat recovery on air handling
• Refurbishing changing rooms, poolside areas, tiling or a pool tank
• Refitting the gym floor or adding studios to grow membership income
• Adding a teaching pool, splash area, sauna or spa
• Fitting out a unit as a dedicated swim school pool
• Taking on a centre from a council or another operator, or buying a freehold
• Bridging the gap between a grant award and its payment, or covering a quiet spell

Many public leisure centres are owned by a council and run by a leisure trust or a contractor under a management agreement. Others have been transferred to community groups. Some trusts are charities or community benefit societies, and some community pools are registered as a community amateur sports club; see HMRC's CASC guidance for the rules those clubs follow. A charity or society usually needs its governing documents to permit borrowing and its board to approve it, and our social enterprise finance page covers how lenders view these structures.

Where an operator does not own the building, lenders look closely at the length of the lease or management contract. A loan that runs beyond the contract, or a refurbishment of a building the operator might hand back, is harder to fund. Independent operators and swim schools trading as limited companies borrow like any other business.

Not-for-profit operators can also look at grants. Sport England and the other national sports councils run funding programmes for community facilities. Sport England's Swimming Pool Support Fund for public pools in England was open only to local authorities and has now closed.

Pools rarely make money on swimming alone, so test repayments against a cautious membership forecast and a realistic energy price. Energy savings projections are estimates; borrow on terms you could meet even if savings are lower. Finance for building works in a leased or council-owned building should end well before the lease or contract does. Directors of limited companies should expect personal guarantees; see our guide to personal guarantees. Borrowing of £25,000 or less by sole traders and small partnerships can be regulated consumer credit, which brings additional protections.

This page covers finance for businesses and organisations that run pools for members or the public. Finance for building or renovating a swimming pool at a private home is personal borrowing and outside its scope. Hotels with pools may also find hotel finance useful, and holiday parks should see caravan park and campsite finance. Indoor attractions such as climbing walls and bowling are covered in indoor leisure finance, and members' sports clubs in sports club finance.