Summer has broken. September has brought cooler air and rain, but the pressures exposed by London’s hottest months have not gone away. Outdoor pools were busier than ever, new places to swim appeared from Canary Wharf to Royal Docks, and a series of deaths in open water underlined the risks of people seeking relief wherever they could find it. As London looks ahead to another summer in 2027, should safe outdoor swimming become something the city plans for more deliberately?
On the hottest days of summer, London Fields Lido could feel like one of Hackney’s most sought-after addresses. The 50-metre pool, tucked into the western edge of London Fields, recorded 216,693 visits during the whole of 2025. By late August this year it had already passed that total, with more than 224,000 visits.
It was part of a wider surge in outdoor swimming. GLL recorded 542,998 visits across its lidos and outdoor swimming estate between June and August 2025, around 30 per cent more than during the same period a year earlier. The organisation said 2026 was on course to be busier again.
Outdoor and cold-water swimming have acquired a culture of their own over the past decade, but increasingly hot London summers are changing the context in which those numbers sit. In June, City Hall published Heat Ready London, its first dedicated plan for dealing with extreme heat. Alongside shade, drinking water and places to escape high temperatures, it included an ambition to improve safe access to blue spaces for swimming and water-based recreation.
According to London Museum’s history of London’s lidos, Greater London had around 70 outdoor swimming places in 1950. Many disappeared during the decades that followed as leisure habits changed and ageing pools became increasingly expensive for councils to maintain.
London Fields itself closed in 1988 and remained shut for almost two decades before reopening in 2006 after sustained pressure from local campaigners. Tooting Bec dates back to 1906 and has recently undergone a £4 million refurbishment intended to safeguard it for another half-century. Parliament Hill Lido, opened in 1938, still operates throughout the year beneath the slopes of Hampstead Heath.
The swimming culture around the Heath is particularly deep. Kenwood Ladies’ Pond celebrates its centenary this year, an anniversary currently marked by the 100 Years Bold in All Weathers exhibition at Lauderdale House, where work by swimmers and artists explores the experience and community that has grown around the pond.
There is little point romanticising this earlier network. Outdoor pools require space, staffing and constant maintenance, but after decades in which London learned to live with fewer lidos, the summer of 2026 showed demand moving in the opposite direction.
In June, Sea Lanes Canary Wharf opened at Eden Dock. Its six-lane, 50-metre floating pool sits in the dock itself, with lifeguards and supervised open-water sessions alongside conventional lane swimming.
A few miles further east, Royal Docks Summer Splash again turned part of Royal Victoria Dock into a free, lifeguarded swimming area for the summer. The Greater London Authority has described Summer Splash as the forerunner to a proposed permanent lido, with the temporary programme being used to inform what might come next.
There is a London precedent for using swimming in this more experimental way. The King’s Cross Pond Club opened in 2015 on land undergoing redevelopment north of Regent’s Canal. Part swimming pond and part public art installation, it used aquatic planting to clean the water and placed an unexpected public amenity in the middle of a construction site. More than 20,000 people used it during its first year before the project eventually made way for the next phase of King’s Cross.
Royal Docks sits in that same tradition of using temporary swimming to test how people might use a place before anything permanent is built.
The hot weather of 2026 also showed what happens when people seek out water beyond managed facilities. Research publicised by the RNLI this summer found that the risk of accidental drowning rises substantially once temperatures reach 25°C. London Fire Brigade repeatedly warned that hot weather could make open water especially tempting while doing nothing to remove its hazards.
Assistant Commissioner McCourt told The London Society:
“We know that the warmer weather can tempt people to cool off in rivers, reservoirs and lakes, but even in hot weather most inland water in London remains very cold, and can be below 16°C. This can cause cold water shock and lead to drowning.”
He also pointed to strong currents, submerged debris, slippery edges and unexpected changes in depth, advising anyone planning an outdoor swim to use designated areas with lifeguards and safety equipment.
London saw several terrible incidents this year, including the death of a mother and son in the River Brent in April and that of a 12-year-old boy after entering the River Lea near Hackney Marshes in August. Following the deaths of three members of one family off Shoreham-by-Sea that same month, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham publicly urged people to exercise greater caution around open water.
More lidos would not remove those risks, and people who actively want to swim in rivers, lakes or the sea may not regard a managed pool as an alternative. The Brigade’s advice nevertheless draws a clear distinction between water people can enter under supervised conditions and places never intended for swimming.
London’s relationship with natural swimming water became more complicated this year when part of the Thames at Ham and Kingston became the capital’s first designated river bathing water. The designation followed a long campaign for better access to the river and brought the site into a formal system of water-quality monitoring. It did not guarantee that conditions would always be suitable for swimming.
By August, blue-green algae had been detected in the Ham and Kingston designated bathing area. The Environment Agency subsequently confirmed that the bloom extended between Sunbury Lock and Teddington Lock, and Kingston Council advised people to avoid contact with the water.
Natural swimming offers a very different experience from a conventional pool, but the episode showed how quickly conditions can change. City Hall’s Clean Rivers and Waterways Plan, published in July, now talks explicitly about making more of London’s waterways swimmable where it is safe to do so, bringing river access into the same broader discussion about how London responds to heat.
The question of access has become more complicated at Hampstead Heath where a London Society member told us that she started swimming regularly at Parliament Hill Lido just over a year ago and now goes most days. She watched numbers increase over the summer, but also noticed a harder boundary developing between the places where people are allowed to swim and the ponds where they are not.
The City of London Corporation manages Parliament Hill Lido along with the Men’s, Ladies’ and Mixed bathing ponds. All are lifeguarded and charge for admission, with concessions available. During summer, standard adult admission to the lido is currently £8.80, while admission to the bathing ponds is £5. The City publishes current swimming prices and booking information here.
“London needs more easily accessible free places to cool off during our hot London summers,”
She points to other ponds on the Heath that have traditionally attracted informal swimming during hot weather. The City Corporation stepped up action against unauthorised swimming during hot weather following incidents of unlawful swimming and anti-social behaviour. Its rules also make clear that swimming in non-lifeguarded ponds can lead to sanctions for season-ticket holders.
The designated swimming ponds have lifeguards, controlled access and facilities, while the surrounding ponds do not. For somebody arriving on a hot afternoon without £5 or £8.80 to spend, however, the distinction may feel less straightforward. Water is visible across the Heath, but only some of it can safely and legally be entered.
Making swimming cheaper or free does not make the cost of providing it disappear and public pools across Britain are under financial pressure. Many are decades old and need substantial maintenance at the same time as staffing and energy costs have risen. Outdoor facilities avoid some of the heating demands of indoor pools but still require lifeguards, water treatment and expensive plant.
Brockwell Lido offered a particularly vivid London example this year. Its former operator, Fusion Lifestyle, entered administration in April, after which Lambeth Council stepped in. From July, the lido transferred to the council’s in-house Active Lambeth service.
The same financial reality sits behind the £4 million refurbishment of Tooting Bec. Community attachment has helped keep London’s surviving lidos alive, but major repairs still need to be paid for. Any argument for treating outdoor swimming as part of London’s response to hotter summers therefore runs straight into the question of who pays for it.
London’s outdoor swimming provision already comes in several forms. Royal Docks is testing whether temporary swimming can become permanent. Canary Wharf is testing a commercial model. Hampstead Heath shows both the strength of demand and the problems created when safe access carries a price. Ham and Kingston show how natural water can open up and close again according to conditions.
London spent much of the second half of the twentieth century allowing its network of outdoor swimming places to shrink. This summer showed that demand has moved on, while the risks around unmanaged water remain.
By the time the next spell of prolonged heat arrives, London will again face the same practical question: where can people go to cool off safely, and who can afford to use it?
Peter Smith, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
