CEREDIGION Council has apologised to parents who were left disappointed to miss out on swimming lessons for their children despite queuing in the early hours on Wednesday, but said that an increase in demand and a shortage of qualified teachers has led to spaces filling rapidly.

The Cambrian News reported yesterday that now the swimming pool has re-opened at Plascrug Leisure Centre in Aberystwyth following a closure of almost two years due to the pandemic, parents were looking forward to starting their youngsters with swimming lessons.

However, only a handful of places were made available on Wednesday, with reports of some parents queuing as early as 4.15am this morning outside Plascrug Leisure Centre to secure a swimming lesson spot.

One parent who queued but missed out said that it was "not good enough to have a whole wave of children unable to swim."

Ceredigion council told the Cambrian News today [Thursday, 25 August] that it has “increased the number of lessons and places available at Plascrug Leisure Centre for the next swimming lesson term compared to the previous term which means that over 300 children receive swimming instruction each week at Plascrug.

“Unfortunately, this increase has not been able to meet the demand we have experienced in some stages for this latest swimming lesson enrolment.”

The council added that “like many learn to swim providers across the country, we have experienced difficulty in recruiting sufficient swimming teachers to meet the extra demand that has existed following the re-opening of our swimming pools.”

“We are in the process of qualifying additional swimming teachers to increase our future capacity,” the council added.

“We have been operating learn to swim crash courses during the summer holidays giving priority to children that do not attend our weekly lessons and we will continue to do so during future school holidays.

“As a coastal county we recognise the importance of our children being confident and safe in water, which is why we offer the opportunity for every pupil to learn to swim whilst in primary school.

“We would like to apologise to anyone that has missed out on securing a space in the coming round of swimming lessons and we will be reviewing the booking procedures to see how it can be improved.”