News Update June 2025: We launched a community consultation process to give the public a chance to input into our detailed project planning. Have your say now by filling in this questionnaire - click HERE to start - it takes just 5 minutes!
News Update May 2025: Minehead Swimming & Leisure and another local community group called Minehead Health and Wellbeing, a Community Interest Company, joined forces towards one single pool project for West Somerset. We will be working together to fundraise from a variety of grant funding sources, as there are new opportunities becoming available later this year. Also in May, Minehead Town Council designated land at the Minehead Recreation Ground at Irnham Road for a swimming pool project.
News Update February 2025: We received a £6,000 grant from The Reach Fund, to undertake business planning and analysis, in order to become ready for our first major round of investment for the swimming pool!
News Update January 2025: We held our first ever Members Meeting and our 2024 Annual General Meeting on 16 January 2025 - and were delighted to have a great turn-out of members! You can read our Annual Activities Report for a summary of what progress we made with the project during 2024.
A bit about our history: Formal efforts to establish a community enterprise to deliver a public pool for Minehead go back to 2017, when a local resident (and current director of MSL) led the establishment of a Community Interest Company. Based on further developments and legal advice, this was converted into the current Community Benefit Society in 2020. Then the Covid-19 pandemic caused significant obstacles to progress, but we still managed to achieve a lot behind the scenes - such as researching comparable community-owned pools around the country, building up our governance including our Board of Directors, building alliances with local government and other stakeholders, conducting publicity and community consultations, and initial business planning such as financial modeling, project planning and initial architectural drawings.