[jameshart]

And one key phrase in there that emphasizes a difference between the UK and US is "council pool". My experience in the US - even in Massachusetts where they actually have functioning local government and aren't too afraid of providing public services - is that providing a swimming pool is a pretty low priority for town government. Often a pool will be provided by the local school system, but access will still be based on a membership fee, which excludes a lot of people from access.

[aspidistra]

With the austerity measures in place in the UK in recent years there have been a few cases of despair at councils closing their swimming pools and leisure centres to try to cut costs. This is often despite fewer and fewer people attending them over the years.

Public swimming pools are a rich seam for nostalgia in Britain. Many public swimming pools were originally built in Victorian times and so fall into the "Always There" backdrop of a city, things you never really enthuse about but would miss if they were gone.

http://www.victoriansociety.org.uk/news/category/swimming-po...

Lidos, public outdoor pools, make up the other half of Swimming Pool Nostalgia. Most were built in the 1930s. They had already fallen out of fashion, really, when I was a kid -- since holidays abroad had become cheap -- but there was one quite near us, about 30 mins drive away, and going there was a bit of a treat.

There have been a few campaigns in recent years -- some successful -- to restore lidos or at least preserve them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lidos_in_the_United_...

[jiggy2011]

Council pools will still charge membership fees or one off fees for use by non-members. Though these fees are probably somewhat cheaper than they would be if privately provided.

[jameshart]

One off fees are fine - my experience in the US is that pools that allow any non-member access are few and far between.