Take the plunge with your pool

By Guy Kennaway
Posted: 2010/09/01

WONDERING what to do this weekend? GUY KENNAWAY thinks you should fill in your swimming pool. . .

WHEN I bought my house in a Somerset village there was a swimming pool in the garden. It was a classic British outdoor pool:
concrete, deep and gloomy.

On top of that there was the peeling paint, uneven concrete slabs and rusting wrought-iron balustrade.

The estate agent insisted it was a benefit but I never saw myself lying on a Li-lo sipping a cocktail in that chilly water so I got builders to fill it in.

If you think I am unusual to do such a thing, you're wrong. An increasing number of people in Britain are doing away with their swimming pools.

Nicola Stratton, a friend of mine w ho lives in the picture-postcard village of Clifford Chambers, near Stratford-upon-Avon, recently removed the pool from her detached four-bedroom house and the contractor who did the job told her he had filled in four swimming pools in the past few months.

My objections to the pool were mainly aesthetic but for Nicola there were other issues: "For six days a year it is glorious. Trouble is, the other 359 days of the year it's just a pain.

"It wasn't that it was too expensive because we didn't heat it, it was the looking after it. The pool service was too expensive and, being a single parent, it was me who had to sweep it. The main problem was leaves.

I nearly cut all the trees down. It was them or the pool: one had to go."

The trials of keeping the water clean were also never ending. "The chemicals the pool shop sell you are mostly unnecessary, " said Nicola.

"I discovered pig chlorine works just as well, though it comes in a liquid so you wreck your clothes and if you get the balance wrong the kids' costumes lose their elasticity.

"Another problem was that when children came round their parents often turned up with them. Whole afternoons were lost while you made endless teas for the other people.

Plus, the kids troop through the house going to the bathroom to wash off so then you have to clear up that mess, too.

"It makes you yearn for a holiday but you feel guilty about going away in the summer when your own pool is usable. When you put the cover on in September you think: 'Thank God for that.' " She also mentioned the worries of having to keep in good shape because you always have to show off your body and the danger of accidentally drowning a child.

The final straw for Nicola came at the beginning of this summer when she returned from a brief holiday to a swimming pool full of water the colour of pea soup garnished with dead frogs, insects and a waterlogged bird. She asked contractor Richard Clarke to remove what had become a nightmare occupying the centre of her lawn.

I met him to investigate. "It's mainly money, upkeep, especially if it's heated or outdoor, " he said.

"In one case the pool needed a major overhaul and that's expensive, too. In another the kids had grown up and no one used it. Kids won't swim if the water is cold.

"On top of all that a swimming pool doesn't add anything to the value of a house so clients don't have to worry about that. I've never had anyone stop me halfway through and they are always happy when the job is done."

Nicola got quotes for removing her pool that started at £17,000 but Richard did it for £4,000. I heard of one enterprising woman who got the school rugby team to do it as a training exercise in return for sustenance and a contribution towards the tour fund.

"Although the hot, dry spell at the beginning of the summer was a bit galling, life without the pool is much better, " Nicola added. "Whenever I see a pool in a garden I can't help but pity the owners and thank the stars I had the courage to fill mine in."

IN ITS place she has a small lawn and a barbecue spot. I have a raised vegetable bed where my pool once stood.

It's another rectangular object that requires more work than I am inclined to give it but at least a child can't drown in it.

I asked Nicola if she had ever thought about a hot tub. "Certainly not, " she said. "There's always people's hair going round in circles and it has five times more chlorine than a swimming pool.

"I've bought a paddling pool and I spent a hot afternoon reading my book in it. A paddling pool is all you need: empty it, deflate it, forget about it."

When I got rid of my pool I sold my filter, pump and net through e-Bay to someone setting out on the horrible journey of owning a swimming pool. I raised £900, which was enough for flights for my family to Spain where the water in the pool was nice and warm and, more importantly, the job of keeping it clean was someone else's.