Sale Water Park was named as one of the best places to go swimming in the UK
12:12, 10 Jul 2025Updated 12:12, 10 Jul 2025
Sale Water Park(Image: Kenny Brown | Manchester Evening News)
A Greater Manchester beauty spot has been named as one of the best places in the UK to go for an outdoor swim.
Sale Water Park came in third place in a list of outdoor swimming spots across the country, which compared locations on the number of searches and social media tags.
The facility clocked in some 33,100 monthly searches on Google, as well as over 13,000 tags on Instagram.
The ranking comes ahead of National Swimming Pools Day on July 11, with the AA taking a look at some of the most popular places that Brits like to go swimming.
Stay connected with our City Life newsletter here
Other places named on the list include Brockwell Lido in London, which takes the top spot, as well as Tooting Bec Lido, which is also in the capital.
Sale Water Park is the only location in the top five which is outside of London.
Unlike other entries on the list, Sale Water Park is not a lido or outdoor pool but instead an artificial lake which is used for a number of water sports including sailing, jet-skiing, and paddle-boarding.
There are supervised swim sessions at the water park(Image: Manchester Evening News)
There are also supervised open water swims where visitors can take to the water with a team of lifeguards on hand.
Anyone who wants to swim at Sale Water Park should book one of the supervised swims as swimming is not permitted outside of these sessions.
Sale Water Park was built in 1970s as part of the M60 motorway construction, which required the road be raised 10m above the Mersey floodplain.
Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE
The material needed for this was excavated from the site next to the motorway, and this was then flooded to create the artificial lake which reaches a depth of some 90ft (27 metres) in places.
Swim sessions at the lake are run by Openswim UK, which was founded in 2015.
The sessions allow people to enjoy swimming in the lake in a safe and supervised environment. This includes safety briefings, wearing brightly coloured caps, and lifeguards supervising the swims around a marked-out course.
Safety is paramount in open water swimming. While it can be tempting to take a dip in a lake or river during hot weather you should not do this outside of a properly supervised swimming session at a location that has been confirmed as safe.
Dangers can include cold water shock, which can cause muscles to seize up, dangerous objects hidden under the water, and potential disease risk if the location has not been properly assessed.
If you would like to try open water swimming you can book a session at Sale Water Park at www.openswim.org.uk.