We went for a wonderful cool off at Charlton lido last night.
It feels a shame that sort of project isn’t really built any more. I wonder if some tech billionaire would like to gain some social credit by creating one - perhaps in Peckham Rye Park?!
Seriously, I wonder what it would take to progress a project like that? Peckham Rye park, or the recreation ground behind Honor Oak Park allotments / graveyard would be perfect venues.
Given they were charging £11 a ticket yesterday, with the climate situation the way it is, it would pay for itself pretty quickly, no?
4 Likes
Yes. If Andrew Carnegie were alive and making decisions this week about how to improve civic life, would it be libraries or cooling off centres? Maybe donating air-con to libraries meets both aims or self-improvement through education and being cool enough to read a book.
But swimming? Carnegie as a Presbyterian might have disapproved of displaying oneself half-naked in public, so not sure if he would have built wimmning pools. But where are the tech bros? They should be bringing the Californian lifestyle to SE London!
3 Likes
There used to be a lido on Peckham Rye; filled in long ago. It was in the triangle on the north side of Nunhead Lane.
A campaign was started to bring it back 10 years ago, but seems to have petered out.
Defunct Peckham Lido campaign
4 Likes
Fascinating! The tech bros need to step up.
I’d completely forgotten about this but remember the crowdfunder now you’ve posted about it! I wonder what happened to the £63000 that was raised. I’m sure we could get the funds together for another go. It can’t be that much to restore something that’s already there.
1% off the sweet, sweet lido dream 
I used to go there as a kid when I was living in Peckham up to the age of 11 and then through the 70s after I’d moved to Honor Oak.
In the 80s, when I had my skate shop in Streatham, opening only 4-5:30pm, I spent lots of the summer round the corner in the massive and always refreshingly cool Tooting Bec Lido.
1 Like
There used to be an outdoor pool at Forest hill School, named by some as Forest Hill Lido.
It was reportedly built by parents staff & pupils themselves in the post war years.
I recall it still being there on what is now an asphalt games area in the 80’s, though it had been closed for many years due to vandalism.