A POPULAR town swimming pool is to reopen on Monday, following a hugely successful community appeal.

Cockermouth Swimming Club reached out to the community to help it raise funds to cover the cost of re-opening the pool for two months.

It hit its £7,000 target within days and has now doubled it to £14,000.

Head coach Sean Balmer said: “The response has been absolutely fabulous.

“Given the uncertain times we’re appealing to people to please keep giving.

“Whilst our pool returns back to normal the money raised affords the club two months of certainty of survival.

“If we could double that amount it would ensure that we have the best restart possible and ensures that we are covered for all eventualities in very uncertain and unprecedented times.”

The club hopes that once the pool is open lots of people will use the facility.

It has lots of committed members desperate to get back in the water. Many of them compete, some of them at international level.

While they could use Workington Pool, which opened last weekend, the hours are restricted, meaning members would only get a limited time.

“We’re a busy club with 20 hours of coaching every week.

“We have been here for 42 years – that’s 400,000 hours of volunteer service,” said Sean.

“We have taken youngsters from swimming lessons and provided them with a pathway to compete on the international stage. ”

The pool is owned by Allerdale Council and run by GLL.

While Cockermouth Leisure Centre re-opened last weekend, on reduced hours and with safety measures in place, the pool remained closed.

Sean has been in talks with Allerdale and GLL.

“They have been very supportive and are bending over backwards to help us,” he said.

Martin Horne, of GLL, said the pool would open on Monday.

“Cockermouth Pool was always going to reopen, the passion and generosity of the swimming club has enabled this to happen earlier. The response to their appeal has been fantastic,” he said.

The pool will be open to the public in the afternoon, he said, but people need to book in advance. Full hours and details are on the leisure centre’s website.

The club’s appeal can be found here.