Communities Fund provided £600 of match funding
Stokie's Big Splash
High Wycombe, England, United Kingdom
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Aim
To help fund the first phase of our pool enclosure, extending its use and creating a more energy-efficient community swimming facility.
Who are we, and what is our project about?
Stokie’s Big Splash is run by a small group of parents and staff from Stokenchurch Primary School. We are raising money to enclose the school’s existing outdoor swimming pool.
The project will transform an existing outdoor pool into a more sustainable and climate-resilient community facility. By enclosing the pool, we can reduce its exposure to wind, rain and direct UV, reduce heat loss and make swimming much less dependent on increasingly unpredictable weather. Rather than building a new facility, we are making better, more efficient use of an important community asset that is already here.
The pool has been teaching children to swim for over 30 years, but because it is outdoors it can currently only be used for around 10 weeks each summer. We want to change that and make much better use of a facility we already have.
Our plan is to build a permanent enclosure over the pool. This will reduce the energy needed to heat it, with the polycarbonate roof also using solar gain to provide additional free heat. It will protect the pool from the weather, give us better control over temperature and ventilation and significantly extend the swimming season.
For us, this is about more than putting a roof over a school pool. We have an existing facility in the heart of the village and an opportunity to turn it into something that can benefit far more people.
Our longer-term aim is for children to be able to swim throughout the school year, for other local schools to use the pool during the school day and for it to be available to the wider community outside school hours.
We are working in partnership with local swim school Ducks 2 Water, who bring swimming and operational expertise to the project and will help us make sure the pool is well used and financially sustainable for the future.
An example of the type of enclosure we are planning – image courtesy of Arch Enclosures
Why are we crowdfunding?
We have already raised an amazing £75,500 and are now concentrating on getting the first phase of the project built.
Rather than trying to raise the whole project cost through one campaign, we are breaking it down into achievable stages.
Our Crowdfunder target is the next £25,000 towards Phase 1.
Phase 1 costs £143,500 and will get the pool enclosed and extend its use from around 10 weeks each summer to approximately seven months of the year. Phase 2 will then focus on further heating and ventilation improvements as we work towards full year-round swimming.
There is a real need for more local swimming provision. Stokenchurch has around 5,000 residents and no public swimming pool. The nearest is more than five miles away and there is no direct public transport connection, making regular swimming difficult for many local families.
We also know people want to use it. In our community consultation, 97% of respondents said they would use the pool and 81% live within one mile. We expect the completed facility to benefit more than 1,500 people each year.
How does this support Climate Action?
The pool is already here, so our starting point is to make better and more efficient use of an existing community asset rather than constructing a new swimming facility.
At the moment, we are heating an outdoor pool that is exposed to wind, rain, changing temperatures and direct sunlight. The proposed enclosure will significantly reduce exposure to the elements and reduce heat loss. Its polycarbonate roof will also benefit from natural solar gain, providing additional free heat and helping to create a more stable environment in which to operate the pool.
Enclosing the pool will reduce direct UV exposure, which causes chlorine in pool water to break down more quickly. This should help chlorine levels to be maintained more effectively and potentially reduce the amount of additional chlorine required. Keeping out leaves and other debris will also reduce cleaning and general maintenance requirements.
The project will also help our community prepare for and adapt to changing and increasingly unpredictable weather. Currently, wet, windy or cooler conditions can prevent the outdoor pool from being used. Once enclosed, swimming will be far less dependent on favourable weather.
Phase 1 will extend the pool's use from approximately 10 weeks each summer to around seven months of the year, with our longer-term ambition being year-round swimming. This will allow us to make much better use of an existing piece of community infrastructure, whether conditions outside are warm, wet, windy or cool.
There is also an important community resilience and water-safety benefit. During periods of warmer weather, people can be drawn to unsupervised open-water locations. Having a safe, supervised swimming facility available locally for more of the year will provide an alternative and give us greater opportunities to deliver water-safety and drowning-prevention education to local children and families.
Providing swimming locally may also help reduce some car journeys. Our community consultation found that 81% of respondents live within one mile of the pool, meaning many users will be able to walk to the facility rather than travel to swimming pools in Princes Risborough, High Wycombe, Marlow or Thame.
Stokie’s Big Splash is therefore about making an existing community asset more sustainable, efficient and resilient: reducing heat and UV-related losses, benefiting from natural solar gain, reducing the impact of weather and debris and creating local swimming provision that is better able to respond to our changing climate.
How we’ll spend the money raised
Every pound raised through this Crowdfunder will go towards Phase 1 of the build.
The main Phase 1 costs are:
£63,000 – Pool enclosure
£62,000 – Groundworks
£6,000 – New filters
£6,000 – New condensing boiler
£1,500 – Maintenance
£5,000 – Contingency
Total Phase 1: £143,500
We have already secured £75,500, so we aren't starting from scratch. Raising the next £25,000 through this campaign would take us another significant step towards being able to start the build.
Alongside this campaign, our fundraising continues through further grant applications, regular monthly donations, local business support and community fundraising. We also have a programme of fundraising events and sponsored challenges in development, helping us continue to work towards the remaining project cost.
How you can help
Please donate if you can and help us spread the word.
Share the campaign with friends and family, tell your workplace or a local business about us, or simply pass the link on to someone who might want to support the project.
You can also support Stokie’s Big Splash through regular monthly giving, helping us build a sustainable stream of fundraising as we work towards our overall target.
We've already come a long way and, with Aviva match funding, every donation could help us get that bit closer to starting the build.
Find out more
You can read more about Stokie's Big Splash, the plans for the pool and our fundraising here:
https://sites.google.com/stokenchurchprimary.bucks.sch.uk/pool
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 1st December 2026 at 3:37am