Former Olympic medallist fears swimming pool closures across the country could go ‘largely unnoticed’ amid pandemic

Parry, who picked up bronze in the 200m butterfly at Athens in 2004, has expressed his concerns after some worrying figures were released.

Swim England have revealed more than 200 pools nationwide did not welcome back swimmers when lockdown restrictions were eased last summer.

And in an even more concerning prediction, it is feared a fifth of pools could remain closed countrywide.

Former Team GB medallist Parry insists the 'pessimism' brought about by the pandemic has played a part in these concerning numbers.

He said: 'The news is so dire, whether it be retail, hospitality, you could quite easily close these cherished community assets and – get away with is the wrong phrase – but it would largely go unnoticed, it would largely be acceptable.

'You’re not going to get the social pushback you would usually get. Any time that you closed a swimming pool in the past, there were little pickets of people saying, ‘Don’t close our pool’.

'Given the pessimistic news at the moment you could get away with closing a swimming pool, but I think that’s something we have got to be really careful about.'

Parry's comments come on the back of Swim England head of talent Grant Robins also expressing worries for the immediate future.

The Southsea resident, 51, who has been named team leader of the swimming team for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games in 2022, admitted the enforced competition break could result in 'significant talent' being missed.

Speaking to The News, he said: 'Competition has gone, training has gone.

‘It’s difficult, a lot of the people on our pathway grow a lot at the age they’re at, they have significant best times when they race.

‘We’re looking at people really who we don’t know how well they’ve progressed because they haven’t had the opportunity.

‘There is the grave danger of a talent gap.’

Parry believes the hospitality sector was prioritised ahead of sport and leisure as industries were reopened after the first lockdown in spring 2020, and fears nothing will change this time.

While pubs and restaurants reopened at the start of July, gyms were not allowed to open until the end of the month.

‘We know that if you are healthy you are more likely to survive Covid and yet as a nation we made a decision to open up leisure a lot later than other sectors. I just question whether that was the right choice,’ Parry added.

‘I would like to see, when we get out of a national lockdown, that leisure and enabling our kids to do physical activity is one of the first things to go back, but I’m actually not sure based on track record that that will be the case.

‘I fear it will be one of the last things to go, because financially it’s not considered a huge contributor to the economy.’

Parry fears the children who will suffer most will be those from the poorest backgrounds.

‘What we know from school swimming figures is that it’s kids from deprived areas who don’t have access to swimming pools and also maybe their parents don’t have disposable income to (pay) to teach them,’ he said.

‘Over 150,000 kids left primary school in 2019 unable to swim.

‘That’s only going to get worse with pools closing and with school swimming not taking place for the best part of 18 months.’