Joe Robertson has pledged his support for creating a tidal sea pool in Sandown Bay after meeting with Sue and Victoria from Swin the Wight, the community interest company behind the plan. Swim the Wight aims to make sea swimming as safe as possible through education and running supervised and risk assessed, regular swims, year-round.
Tidal sea pools are a man-made structure which fill with water as the tide comes in and retain the water as the tide recedes allowing safe sea swimming at all states of the tide and wind. There are known health benefits to sea water swimming which has become more popular since Covid. The plan for Sandown is to build a retaining wall between existing groynes thereby creating the pool.
After meeting with Sue and Victoria, Joe said, “I am pleased to support Swim the Wight’s plans for an accessible tidal sea pool in Sandown. There are the obvious health benefits to creating a new facility but also opportunities for research in the environment created by the pool. The plans would be fully funded and not reliant on local taxpayer money. I have offered to do what I can to persuade the Council and Environment Agency to agree, particularly through the planning application stages.
Local Councillor Ian Ward has already thrown his support behind the project.
