The forest swimming pool in Liberec will have facilities probably by the next season

Liberec – Visitors to the city's Forest Swimming Pool in Liberec will likely see the renewed facilities in the next summer season. The municipality is currently looking for a company to carry out the construction work. This is a contract worth more than five million crowns, according to data in the public procurement bulletin.

The outdoor swimming pool at the foot of the Jizera Mountains has more than seventy years of history, but its condition shows that it has deteriorated for many years and was out of operation from 2001 to 2018. Six years ago, the municipality spent 7.5 million crowns on essential repairs to make the natural swimming pool operational again. However, the facilities are still lacking. A group of enthusiasts, named after the Forest Swimming Pool, which has leased the area from the city since 2020, set a goal to build these facilities. So far, the group has been carrying out the work in smaller phases, depending on how successfully they could secure funding from grants or donations. "The foundation slab with the rough wooden structure for the future facilities, utilities, and the treatment plant are complete," said Jan Vondrák, chairman of the Forest Swimming Pool group, to ČTK today.

He welcomes that the municipality has announced a single contract for the completion of the facilities. "It will be easier to manage. Since it was city property, we had to tender for every little thing. It was organizationally demanding," he stated.

This year, the municipal leadership decided to pay the remaining amount needed for the construction of the facilities from city funds, partly because its renovation received the most votes in all three previous editions of the so-called participatory budget of Liberec, where residents decide on the allocation of funds. "We agreed in coalition that we would allocate the remaining amount needed for the construction of the swimming pool in the budget, and thus we released the participatory budget in the category of super-large projects for other ideas," said Jan Huška (Pirates), the deputy mayor, earlier. In the previous three editions, the swimming pool received about four million crowns from the participatory budget, and this year the municipality will add roughly the same amount directly from its own budget.

If a contractor is selected in the competition, work will begin in the fall and conclude in the spring of next year. The area will not only gain a building with a bistro, sauna, changing rooms, toilets, and facilities for staff, but also a wooden lounge staircase, a sand volleyball court, wooden docks for relaxation, and bike racks.

In Liberec, it is one of the few swimming pools that operate throughout the summer. Others include the municipal Sluníčko in Vratislavice nad Nisou and the private Vápenka in Dolní Hanychov. The dam is drained, and the swimming stadium has limited operation due to an upcoming major renovation, only offering a sunny meadow and an indoor twenty-five-meter pool.