Portishead Open Air Pool

Portishead Open Air Pool stands on Battery Point beside the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel. It is a heated seawater lido built in 1962 to serve the growing town. The pool is managed by the Portishead Pool Community Trust on a not-for-profit basis. It attracts between forty thousand and fifty thousand visits each season. North Somerset Council recognises the site as a non-designated heritage asset for its social and historical importance. The pool opened in April 1962 with warm water piped from the nearby phosphorus works. Attendance topped one hundred thousand in each of its first five seasons. By the early 2000s visitor numbers fell sharply and the council proposed permanent closure. Residents formed the Save the Open-air Pool campaign and the Portishead Pool Community Trust. In 2009 Ty Pennington’s Great British Adventure featured the lido for a week-long makeover. More than four hundred local volunteers worked with contractors to refurbish the pool and changing rooms. The lido now has a 33-metre main pool and a shallow learner pool. Sun terraces surround the water and a Lido Café serves visitors. The pool operates from spring through early autumn thanks to a biomass boiler. A standard family swim costs five pounds per person, with under-threes admitted free. Cold-water swimming events such as the Portishead Popsicle gala extend the operating calendar. The pool reopened in May 2021 after a long closure during the COVID-19 pandemic.