Charity dives into plan for heated lido at George’s Dock in Dublin

A group campaigning for a heated public swimming pool at George’s Dock in the capital is finalising a new feasibility study to present to Dublin city council after its initial proposal was rejected last year.
The Dublin City Lido is an unfunded charity run by Patrick Earls, Jane Dillon, Sarah Walker and Jonathan Blayney, which launched in 2020. They believe a public lido would benefit all Dubliners and help to attract visitors to the city.
The group has received advice from architects, quantity surveyors, consultants and engineers and said the new lido project would involve an accessible, heated, 50-metre swimming pool, as well as a teaching pool, sauna, public seating and floating decks, a café and community space.
Sarah Walker, a co-director of the campaign, said the new plan was set to be completed by the end of next month.
The original proposal was shut down by the council last year due to its size and scale, which the group was told was not in keeping with the 19th-century heritage site.
The proposal was put forward in the aftermath of plans for the heavily criticised white-water rafting facility which was rejected in 2021 after estimated costs spiralled to more than €25 million. Walker said: “We had meetings with Dublin city council last year and we got some feedback from them specifically around the design. We had released a conceptual image designed to capture public attention and public imagination and their feedback, rightly so, was that the design wasn’t necessarily in keeping with the conservation side, but generally we had good engagement with the councillors and the central area committee.
“In the last year we’ve been hard at work on a preliminary feasibility study that is going to take on board the feedback from the councillors and look at indicating an optional design which adheres to planning requirements and ensuring that the project is economically and operationally viable. We are consulting with conservation architects alongside our lead architect to ensure that the design is in keeping with the historical context of the site.”
The group has also set up a GoFundMe page to raise €20,000 for the new design. The page had raised just under €6,500 at the time of writing.
“We need to be able to get a new realistic design and a new image that can show what that lido would look like,” Walker said.
“Our aim is to ensure that the new design is more likely to comply with planning guidelines … We’re just hoping that we will be able to convince Dublin city council to progress this and to take it further into development.”
Walker said Ireland’s success at the Paris Olympics had highlighted the importance of supporting future swimming talent. “It’s never been so clear that we need to invest in public swimming infrastructure,” she said.
“The success of the Olympics team was absolutely phenomenal and it really demonstrates the value of swimming facility investment. Outdoor swimming is only growing in popularity in Ireland so we’re really positive about it.”
Walker noted that other European countries had plenty of outdoor public swimming pools. “We’ve been looking at a lot at case studies in the UK and Scandinavia,” she said.
“You’ve got one near Sheffield in north England which is not necessarily the sunny south coast. The London Fields Lido has annual attendees of 100,000 to 350,000 on average. Obviously the lido will be outdoors but it will be heated to 23 degrees which allows a comfortable experience all year.”
Dublin city council said it was considering options for the future use of George’s Dock. “A presentation was made by Dublin City Lido to the Central Area committee in January 2023 for a public lido at George’s Dock,” it said. “Due to significant costing the committee did not wish to progress with the proposal at the time.”