A group of swimmers have staged a protest over the loss of Leeds’ only licensed open water swimming spot.<\/b><\/p>\n
Swimmers had been able to use a section of water at Leeds Dock under the supervision of a lifeguard at set times under a management agreement with the organisation Love Open Water, who oversaw the service.<\/p>\n
But with the leaseholders of the site in administration, the agreement has not been renewed as administrators Interpath say open water swimming is “no longer considered viable under the current circumstances”.<\/p>\n
Among those to enter the water in protest was Sophie Abbott, who said: “We are here because we want to swim and we want to see the safe swimming back at Leeds Dock.”<\/p>\n
Security guards watched on as about 25 people took a dip against safety advice just after 18:00 BST on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“I feel very passionate about people having access to safe open water swimming spaces,” said 50-year-old Abbott.<\/p>\n
“This was really a point of pride for Leeds city about being ahead of the curve a bit having an urban open water swim spot.<\/p>\n
“It’s a real shame to lose that.”<\/p>\n
Several protestors said having more designated open water swimming sites could reduce the number of drownings during periods of hot weather.<\/p>\n
Discussing the risks involved with entering the water, which had not been quality checked since 31 July, Abbott, from Leeds, said: “As an open-water swimmer you take an individual risk when you go swimming.<\/p>\n
“I’m aware that I’m taking a risk and I take that on my own behalf.”<\/p>\n
Organisers of the event said the previous swim sessions were well-attended, underlining the popularity of open water swimming in the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of swimmers have staged a protest over the loss of Leeds’ only licensed open water swimming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1169132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8814],"tags":[748,393,4884,1860,16,15],"class_list":["post-1171267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-leeds","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-leeds","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117164397468305041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}