Broomfields pool stays closed into September: scaffolding starts in the final week of August and takes about three weeks. Where you can still swim in Warrington.

The swimming pool at Broomfields Leisure Centre in Appleton will stay closed into September, and the work needed to find out why has not started yet. Warrington Borough Council said on 12 August that it has authorised scaffolding, that the contractor is expected to begin putting it up in the final week of August, and that the installation alone is expected to take around three weeks. Only then can the detailed investigation of the pool hall ceiling begin. (Warrington Borough Council)

The pool was closed at the end of July for safety reasons after an issue affecting the pool hall ceiling. Specialist contractors inspected the site and advised that further investigation is needed before any repair can start, and that specialist access equipment is required to make a full assessment possible. The council said it expects to be in a position to give a further update in September, and that no investigation or repair work will begin until health and safety measures are in place.

Cllr Jean Flaherty, deputy council leader and cabinet member for communities, culture and leisure, said: “We understand how disappointing this news will be for swimmers, clubs, schools and regular users of Broomfields Leisure Centre. We know how important the pool is to many people in the community and we are sorry for the disruption this closure is causing.”

LiveWire, which runs the borough’s leisure centres and libraries, carries a banner on every page of its website saying the Broomfields pool is closed, and the centre’s own page says it is closed “until further notice”. The rest of Broomfields is unaffected: the gym, the 20-plus weekly fitness classes and the outdoor pitches are still running, and the centre is open from 6am on weekdays. (LiveWire Warrington)

Lessons and club sessions

The closure reaches well beyond casual swimmers. The council said it is working on contingency arrangements for Learn to Swim sessions, performance swimming programmes and school swimming lessons, and that everyone directly affected will be contacted once alternative arrangements and timescales are confirmed. In other words, if your child is booked on to lessons at Broomfields, the arrangement for the new term is not settled yet, and the trigger for news is the council’s September update rather than the start of the school year.

Two of the borough’s five swimming sites are now out

Broomfields is not the only pool missing. LiveWire lists five sites with swimming pools, and Woolston Neighbourhood Hub, which has two of them, has been closed since 2025. Its page opens with the line that the hub is closed until further notice. (LiveWire Warrington)

The council set out the Woolston position in January. The hub, which houses a swimming pool, leisure facilities, a library, a GP surgery and community organisations, had been partially closed since July 2025 and fully closed since that September, because of structural concerns and the persistent presence of legionella bacteria that survived repeated flushing and disinfection. The council put the cost of repairing the building and making it safe to operate at roughly £3 million. More than 3,000 people responded to a consultation on its future, with the options ranging from a full or partial reopening to permanent closure, and the council said a cabinet decision was expected in early spring. It has published nothing on its news pages about that decision since. (Warrington Borough Council)

Add the two together and five of the borough’s eight council pools are open, across three of the five sites that have one.

Chart of Warrington's five council swimming sites showing Orford Jubilee with two pools open, Great Sankey two pools open, Bewsey and Dallam one pool open, Broomfields one pool closed since late July 2026 and Woolston two pools closed since September 2025.
Pools at LiveWire's five swimming sites and which are open, as listed on the operator's own centre pages.

There is a geography to this that matters more in Warrington than it would elsewhere. Broomfields sits in Appleton, south of the Manchester Ship Canal. All three sites with open pools, Orford Jubilee, Great Sankey and Bewsey and Dallam, are north of it. Anyone in Appleton, Stockton Heath, Grappenhall, Thelwall or Latchford who wants a council pool now has to cross the canal to reach one, on crossings that stop for shipping. Our roadworks and travel page tracks what is closed on those routes.

What it means for you

If you swim at Broomfields, these are the practical points as they stand on 14 August.

  • The pool is not reopening this summer. The council’s own timetable has scaffolding starting in the final week of August, taking around three weeks to build, and the investigation following after that. The next update is due in September.
  • The three sites still open are Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood Hub, Jubilee Way, WA2 8HE, two pools, open from 6am on weekdays; Great Sankey Neighbourhood Hub, Lingley Green Avenue, WA5 3AA, two pools, open from 6am on weekdays; and Bewsey and Dallam Community Hub, Longshaw Street, WA5 0DY, one pool, open from 9am to 8pm on weekdays. (LiveWire Warrington)
  • Check before travelling rather than booking blind. LiveWire is also carrying a notice that it is fixing a problem with its online booking and membership sign-up portal, so the phone numbers on each centre page are the more reliable route for now.
  • If your child is on Learn to Swim, wait to be contacted. The council said those directly affected will be told once alternative arrangements are confirmed, and it has not published a general reallocation of sessions.
  • The rest of Broomfields is open. Gym, classes and pitches are running as normal.

We will report the September update when the council publishes it, along with any cabinet decision on Woolston. If you have been moved off a swimming programme, or your school has lost its pool slot, we would like to hear about it: hello@warringtonwire.co.uk.