My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Lesley
Last Name
Green
Pronouns
She/Her
Email address
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Lead Organisation Name
I Love to Swim Endlessly Community Interest Company
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
2016
Initiative Title
Love to Swim community pool
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
https://www.instagram.com/lovetoswim_london/ https://www.lovetoswim.co.uk/
Initiative Stage
Pilot-Stage (The first activities have happened, and you have proof of concept)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Health & Fitness
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
An innovative modular swimming pool that reimagines primary school space to deliver year-round, shared community access to swimming, water safety, and training for all ages and abilities in Tower Hamlets. . Go! London support would act as catalytic funding at a critical transition point, enabling us to move from planning into delivery while unlocking further capital and partnership investment.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
LBTH faces a significant shortage of accessible and affordable swimming provision, resulting in long waiting lists, limited curriculum swimming opportunities, and unequal access for people of different ages, abilities, and backgrounds. This challenge is structural as well as practical. Swim England has identified a water space deficit of approx 2,161 m² across the borough, equivalent to almost 6 standard 25-metre pools, meaning existing facilities fall short of what is needed to meet local population need. Many primary schools lack on-site swimming facilities, while community access to pools is constrained by cost, availability, and ageing infrastructure. As a result, children miss out on essential life-saving skills, schools struggle to meet national curriculum requirements, and disabled swimmers and adults face additional barriers to participation. Those who will benefit most from this initiative are local children and families, schools, disabled swimmers, and residents who are currently excluded from regular access to swimming and water safety opportunities. The core barrier we are addressing is not simply a lack of facilities, but the way space is locked into single-use models that limit wider community benefit. Schools, local authorities, and community providers often operate separately, making it difficult to unlock shared access to safe, affordable spaces for sport and physical activity. By partnering with a primary school, we are creating a shared-use model that supports curriculum swimming during the school day and community access outside school hours, reducing cost barriers and bringing provision closer to where people live. Without new, locally controlled water space, these access and attainment gaps will pepersist despite strong demand and engagement.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
Our approach addresses the structural barriers that limit access to swimming and physical activity. Rather than relying on traditional leisure centres or short-term pool hire, we reimagine how school sites can operate as shared, multi-use assets serving pupils, local schools, and the wider community. This approach is grounded in over 15 years of delivery experience in East London. Despite maximising available pool time, this model has reached its limits. We are unable to expand high-demand provision, including autism-inclusive swimming, and regularly turn away schools and community organisations due to a lack of available water space. Rising hire costs, venue-led closures, and short-term agreements also restrict our ability to plan sustainably or respond to local need. Our solution is to unlock underused school land through a modular swimming pool that supports curriculum swimming during the school day, and community use outside school hours. This shared-use model reduces cost, travel, and access barriers while embedding provision within the heart of the community. Landowners and decision-making stakeholders play a central role. The primary school provides the site, while engagement with the local authority ensures alignment with borough priorities around health, inclusion, and education. Love to Swim brings operational expertise, established systems, and trusted community relationships to activate the space sustainably. The “aha” moment came from recognising that the barrier was not demand, but control over space. A permanent modular pool offers a practical way to secure long-term access, affordability, and stability for community swimming.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
Our initiative is rooted in long-term relationships with the communities closest to the problem and has been shaped through direct engagement with schools, families, and young people. Pre-planning is underway with host school Marner Primary, following multiple site visits, with delivery targeted for September 2026 subject to approvals. These early stages have involved close collaboration with school leadership to align the design, layout, and operating model with the needs of pupils, staff, and the wider school community. Young people influence the solution through their lived experience of limited access to swimming. Many of the children we work with have missed curriculum swimming or face long waits for lessons, while families of autistic swimmers have highlighted the importance of consistency, familiarity, and quieter sessions. These needs directly inform how the pool will be programmed, including school curriculum use, structured SEND provision, and community sessions outside school hours. Schools within the local catchment also shape the model. Demand from nearby schools unable to meet curriculum requirements has informed the shared-use approach, ensuring the pool serves multiple schools rather than a single site. The wider community actively contributes to shaping delivery. We regularly work with organisations that approach us to deliver programmes on their behalf, influencing priorities such as inclusive swimming, women-only sessions, and pathways into training. Our Teacher Training Pathway enables young people from the local area to move from participant to volunteer to paid role, embedding community ownership into delivery. By involving schools, families, and community groups from the earliest stages, the initiative is co-created around real local need.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
Based on our financial and operational modelling for a 10m x 5m modular pool, the after-school programme alone could support up to 420 pupils per week: This increase in capacity would be realised immediately on opening, delivering measurable impact within the first academic term rather than over multiple years. Curriculum swimming delivered during the school day would reach a further 450 pupils per week. Currently, fewer than 20% of pupils in Tower Hamlets achieve the national curriculum standard of swimming 25 metres. At Marner Primary School, financial constraints mean only one year group can access swimming for half a term, and none currently meet the standard. On-site access to a pool would enable ALL pupils to swim weekly, creating a credible pathway for pupils to achieve the curriculum requirement, while also enabling access for other schools within the local catchment. Beyond schools, consistent access to water space enables the immediate expansion of high-demand community provision, including SEND and women-only sessions that are currently constrained by limited availability and long waiting lists. Increased capacity allows unmet demand to be addressed quickly while supporting year-round, inclusive access. The pool also enables workforce development through expansion of our Teacher Training Pathway, supporting local people to progress to qualified swimming teachers addressing teacher shortages and improve representation from the local Muslim community, strengthening the sustainability of provision. Impact will be evidenced through participation data, curriculum attainment, reduced waiting lists, and progression into training and employment. Together, this delivers rapid, scalable impact by unlocking school space as a community asset for physical activity.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
What makes this initiative innovative is not the activity itself, but how it reimagines access to space & changes the way swimming provision is delivered. Traditional solutions rely on public leisure centres or hired pool time, which are costly, limited in availability, & controlled by third parties. Our approach tackles the root cause of the problem: lack of control over suitable water space in areas of high demand. We apply a new context by embedding a permanent, purpose-built modular swimming pool within a primary school site & operating it as a shared community asset. This enables curriculum swimming during the school day & inclusive community access outside school hours, unlocking space that would otherwise remain single-use. Rather than competing for scarce pool time, the model creates new, long-term capacity where it is most needed. The innovation also lies in how partners collaborate. Schools, community providers, & the LA are brought together within one operating model, aligning educational outcomes, health priorities, & community need. This challenges the norm of fragmented provision by creating shared ownership of both the space & impact. Our approach combines infrastructure, programming, and workforce development within a single model. Consistent, long-term access to water space allows us to integrate inclusive provision & training pathways for local people into one site, rather than delivering these in isolation across multiple venues. By shifting control of space closer to the community & demonstrating that school sites can function as permanent community sport assets, the initiative creates a replicable blueprint for addressing water space deficits and changing how access to physical activity is structured in urban areas.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
Our initiative is designed to be operationally sustainable from the outset through a clear partnership and income model. The modular pool is located on a primary school site under a long-term arrangement, with the school providing access to land in exchange for curriculum swimming delivered during the school day. This removes the need for costly pool hire and creates stability around tenure, access, and programming. Financial sustainability is driven by a mixed-use operating model. While curriculum swimming supports educational outcomes, the facility is primarily sustained through earned income generated outside school hours. After-school lessons, community programmes, SEND and autism-inclusive provision, and adult swimming ensure high utilisation across evenings, weekends, and school holidays. This approach enables the full operating costs of the facility to be covered while reducing reliance on short-term or ongoing grant funding. Love to Swim brings over 15 years of delivery experience, an established customer base, and proven systems for safeguarding, quality assurance, workforce development, and financial management. The Teacher Training Pathway further strengthens sustainability by growing a local workforce and reducing long-term staffing pressures. Scalability is built into the model. The pool design, partnership structure, and operating framework are intentionally replicable across other school sites facing similar access constraints. Our ambition is to create a repeatable blueprint that schools and local authorities can adopt. Evidence from the initial site will be used to unlock future partnerships and investment, enabling the model to scale across other London Boroughs and beyond.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
The initiative is delivered through a clear partnership model, with defined roles across education, delivery, technical design, and sector support. Love to Swim leads overall delivery and operations. This includes managing the modular pool, delivering after-school and community swimming programmes, overseeing safeguarding and quality assurance, and coordinating workforce development through its Teacher Training Pathway. Love to Swim is responsible for day-to-day operations, community engagement, and ensuring the facility is fully utilised and financially sustainable. Marner Primary School is the host and core delivery partner. The school provides access to land for the modular pool and works closely with Love to Swim to integrate curriculum swimming into the school day. School leadership contributes to timetabling, safeguarding arrangements, and alignment with educational priorities, ensuring the facility supports pupils from Reception through to Year 6. Swim England provides strategic and technical support. The Swim England Facilities team contributes sector expertise on pool provision, design standards, and alignment with national swimming infrastructure guidance. Ongoing engagement with the Swim England Engagement Manager for the South East supports alignment with participation priorities, workforce development, and wider system learning. Bunka Pools, led by Lee Waterford, provides specialist technical input. Bunka Pools is responsible for the design, specification, and delivery of the modular pool system, ensuring it meets safety, quality, and longevity requirements and is fit for long-term community use. Local authority engagement supports alignment with borough priorities and connections to other schools within the local catchment. Community organisations contribute insight and referrals that inform inclusive programming and ensure the facility responds to local need. Together, these partners bring complementary expertise, with clear accountability across delivery, education, technical implementation, and sector alignment.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
Short term (0–3 months) • Confirm partnership arrangements with Marner Primary School, including heads of terms for land use and curriculum swimming delivery. • Complete pre-planning submission and continue technical feasibility work with Bunka Pools and the Swim England Facilities team. • Deploy existing capacity-building support, including a £2,500 LBTH-funded bid writer, to progress funding applications and partnership agreements. • Attend Go! London refinement support and integrate learning into delivery and evaluation planning. Delivery phase (Summer–Autumn 2026) • Install and commission the modular swimming pool during the August 2026 school summer holidays (estimated 4–5 week build period) to minimise disruption to the school site. • Complete testing, staff induction, and safeguarding sign-off. • Launch curriculum swimming and after-school/community programmes from September 2026, including access for other schools within the local catchment. Growth and consolidation (12+ months) • Embed year-round operation, including school holiday provision. • Collect participation, attainment, and workforce data to evidence impact. • Share learning with local authority and sector partners and identify additional school sites for replication. • These milestones provide a clear, time-bound route from planning to delivery, while building the evidence and partnerships needed to sustain and scale the initiative.
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
Participation in the 8-week capacity-building programme would require dedicated time and specialist input alongside the day-to-day delivery of our existing services. As a small organisation, releasing capacity to engage fully would create additional costs. If selected as a finalist, funding support would help cover: Backfill for operational delivery to allow senior leadership to participate fully in programme sessions, mentoring, and workshops (e.g. temporary staffing or increased session cover). Professional support and advisory input to strengthen specific areas of development explored during the programme, such as financial modelling, legal structuring, governance, or partnership agreements. Evaluation and impact planning support, including time and tools to develop robust measurement frameworks aligned with Go! London outcomes. Travel and subsistence costs associated with attending in-person sessions, site visits, or partner meetings where required. Any support received would be used strictly to enable meaningful participation in the capacity-building programme and to accelerate the readiness, resilience, and long-term sustainability of the initiative, rather than to fund delivery or capital costs.
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User Email
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