9 Best Swimming Pools In West Midlands

A centre with a separate teaching pool, and a session where that pool is open to the public rather than booked out for lessons. That second condition catches people out constantly — the small pool exists but is in use every weekday teatime, which is exactly when families turn up. Ring and ask which sessions have the learner pool available. Walsall Gala Baths and Kingstanding Leisure Centre are the sort of municipal centre where this is worth checking before you drive over.

Roughly seven, and it depends more on swimming ability than on birthdays. The Wave Coventry is built around flumes and moving water, and most slides carry a height requirement, so a small child can find themselves watching their siblings queue for things they are not allowed on. A child who can swim a length unaided gets an enormous amount out of it. A four-year-old who cannot is better served by somewhere they can stand up and you can sit down.

Look for a centre where the two pools are in sight of each other, so one adult can supervise a small child in the shallow water while the older ones swim properly, without either group being abandoned. Failing that, split the session in half and swap. The mistake is choosing the venue that suits the oldest child and assuming the youngest will cope, because a non-swimmer in a deep pool is a two-handed job for one adult and nobody else gets to swim at all.

It is not a day out at all, and that is its strength rather than a criticism. An hour and a half in the water, chips afterwards, home — that is the shape, and it works on a Sunday in February when nothing else does. Judged as a destination a municipal pool disappoints; judged as a reliable way to exhaust a seven-year-old on a bleak Sunday, it beats most of what else is available indoors in the county.